Coalition of the Leaving
Published by The Mountain Mail on March 19, 2007
President Bush's "coalition of the willing" is quickly turning into a "coalition of the leaving." Eighteen countries have already completely withdrawn their troops from Iraq and more still are on their way out. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent announcement that a significant number of U.K. troops will soon be removed from Iraq serves only to underscore a lesson that a large and growing number of coalition members have already learned: it's time to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.
The harsh truth is that the largely symbolic coalition is rapidly disintegrating. Thirty-eight countries contributed combat or support troops as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, although many of those countries contributed troops under very limited circumstances. Singapore's token contributions, for instance, principally included transport vessels engaged in logistical support for only a few months.
But as the war turned from liberation to occupation, public opinion in coalition countries went from bad to worse. Coalition allies, as democratic countries are prone to do, responded to the will of their people and began withdrawing their troops. Nicaragua was the first domino to fall in February 2004 and was promptly followed by Spain, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras. Eventually, the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Tonga, Portugal, The Netherlands, Hungary, Singapore, Norway, Ukraine, Japan, Italy, and Slovakia all followed suit.
In all, eighteen countries have completely withdrawn their troops, with Denmark scheduled to be out by August of this year and Poland leaving around the same time. (Lithuania is also "seriously considering" removing its troops.) When these countries do leave, the number of original coalition countries will have been cut by over half. Only a handful of troops from Albania, Estonia, Latvia, and Mongolia--to name a few--will remain.
The sad reality, of course, is that this has largely been a U.S. operation with other countries providing a fig leaf of international support. The overwhelming majority of combat troops in Iraq are American, while coalition troops largely assist with training, transport, medical assistance, and other support operations. Most people abroad see the tragedy in Iraq as the sole responsibility of the United States and aren't anxious to wade into a worsening quagmire.
Indeed, there are now approximately 139,000 American troops in Iraq (with an additional 21,500 combat soldiers on the way), compared to only 14,200 coalition troops, over half of whom are British. Even more telling is that only five of the current 21 coalition countries have more than 500 soldiers in Iraq and several of those countries have either recently reduced or are planning to reduce troop levels further still. The tragic consequence is that over 3,160 American troops have lost their lives, which contrasts sharply with the toll of fallen British soldiers at slightly over 130 and all other coalition allies at just over 120. In spite of all of this, the only country that continues to escalate its military involvement by sending more troops into harms way is the United States.
The winding down of British troops from Iraq shouldn't come as much of a surprise; U.K. officials discussed a timetable for withdrawal with their American counterparts over four months ago. The British complained that their military was "near the breaking point" due to long deployments in Iraq and instead wanted to shift focus to the war in Afghanistan.
Similar bells are being rung in the United States. General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently issued a report stating that the U.S. military is so thoroughly strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it wouldn't be able to adequately respond to another crisis. Another recent congressional commission report stated that nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated "not ready" due mainly to equipment shortages. It is time that the U.S. took a page from the British playbook and established its own timetable for withdrawal.
Both President Bush and Congress alike need to listen to the majority of American people who now favor setting a deadline for withdrawing our troops. Otherwise the U.S. risks having the rest of the world pass it by and we will have no one to blame but ourselves when the next crisis strikes and we are drastically unprepared.
