Gates, Petraeus want longer pullout period from Iraq

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama faced down his three top military officials in a policy confrontation during his very first day in office, U.S. military sources have told UPI.

On Wednesday, the president met with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen and Central Command commander four-star Gen. David Petraeus. Gates, supported by Mullen and Petraeus, vigorously argued that the president should back away from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within the next 16 months and space out the withdrawal over a longer period of time. However, the president instructed the three officials to prepare a plan that would still implement the 16-month withdrawal period, Pentagon sources said.

The discussion between the president and the three officials was friendly and respectful. However, the president's determination to implement his stated policy took the officials by surprise, one of the sources told UPI. Petraeus, in particular, had expected the recommendation to extend the period of the withdrawal timetable to be accepted, several sources said.

The sources all stressed that the necessity for the troop withdrawal was never at issue. Since July 7, 2008, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki repeatedly has demanded a firm timetable and deadline for the completion of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. He made it a condition of the Status of Forces Agreement that he finally signed with the outgoing Bush administration. The deadline in the SOFA for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces is three years hence.

Once the president made his position clear, Mullen made clear he was determined to implement the policy, the sources said.

A statement was issued after Obama met with Gates, Mullen and Petraeus, but it contained no reference to the immediate implementation of the 16-month timetable.

On Thursday Gates told a news conference at the Pentagon that the 16-month withdrawal timetable was just one of several options the United States had on the table in its withdrawal plans from Iraq.

"From really ever since the election, we have been looking at several options, and obviously 16 months is one of them. We are very aware of what the president has said, and we have an obligation and a responsibility to provide him with a range of options that include the one that he has spoken about," Gates said.

The president's hands-on role in shaping key strategic policies and goals is consistent with the behavior of U.S. presidents in their role as commander in chief. However, his predecessor, President George W. Bush, during his two terms in office established a consistent pattern of passively following the recommendations of his two secretaries of defense. He never challenged or overruled Donald Rumsfeld during his highly controversial six years as secretary of defense when the U.S. armed forces, with allied support, invaded Iraq to topple longtime President Saddam Hussein.

Bush fired Rumsfeld after Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections of November 2006. He then appointed Gates to replace Rumsfeld, and Gates then reversed or changed many of Rumsfeld's polices. In particular, he appointed Petraeus as the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Petraeus introduced radically different, classic counterinsurgency tactics, especially working with local sheiks in Anbar and Diyala provinces that led to a dramatic improvement in security conditions in Iraq. However, while Bush praised and welcomed the results of these new polices, he stayed hands off in the implementation of them, just as he had done with Rumsfeld's far more controversial policies earlier.

While Bush generally followed the advice of his military leaders, he did push strongly against it in insisting on the "surge."

Pentagon sources told UPI, however, that the debate over the 16-month timetable is far from over. They said many senior Army officers believe Obama's timetable is far too tight; they say it is unrealistic to withdraw the 140,000 or so U.S. troops still operating in Iraq, along with their equipment, without running the risk of letting Iran vastly increase its influence and power in Iraq, or facing a resurgence of al-Qaida and other insurgent groups, or both possible outcomes.

According to a published account by Bob Woodward, Bush rejected the urgings of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz the day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that he immediately start planning to attack Iraq and topple Saddam. However, over the following year and a quarter, Bush was swayed by the arguments of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and their allies, and he approved that change in policy.

However, Obama appears determined to impose the 16-month withdrawal timetable, and he has a staunch ally in his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Clinton told her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that she favored a policy of seeking dialogue with Iran.

Also, Obama and Clinton have emphasized the appointing of two veteran senior U.S. diplomats as their negotiators to bring peace to various conflicts and tensions around the Middle East and South Asia -- former Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke for Afghanistan and former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, who was President Bill Clinton's peace envoy to the successful Irish Peace Process in the 1990s, for the Middle East.

Holbrooke and Mitchell both have unsurpassed experience in peace negotiations over the past 20 years around the world. The announcement of their appointments so soon was consistent with Clinton's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Both men are believed to have been Clinton's first choice for the positions and were also strongly approved by Obama.

The president was fiercely criticized by anti-war activists for asking the widely respected Gates to stay on as secretary of defense from the Bush administration. It was the first time in U.S. history that any secretary of defense has been asked to stay in office when the party out of power in a presidential election took control of the executive branch.

Obama was widely praised for his efforts to maintain stability and continuity in national security policy by asking Gates to stay on.