What could happen if U.S. pulls troops out of Iraq

WASHINGTON — If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to unfold:

• Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province.

• Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups.

• The Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there.

In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations.

That was the conclusion reached in recent "war games" exercises conducted for the U.S. military by retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson.

"I honestly don't think it will be apocalyptic," said Anderson, who has served in Iraq and now works for a major defense contractor. But "it will be ugly."

In making the case for a continued U.S. troop presence, President Bush has offered far more dire forecasts, arguing that al-Qaida or Iran — or both — would take over Iraq after a "precipitous withdrawal" of U.S. forces.

Al-Qaida, he said recently, would "be able to recruit better and raise more money from which to launch their objectives" of attacking the U.S. homeland. War opponents in Congress counter that Bush's talk about al-Qaida is overblown fear-mongering and that nothing could be worse than the present situation.

Increasingly, the Washington debate over when U.S. forces should leave is centering on what would happen once they do.

The U.S. military, aware of this political battlefield, has been quietly exploring scenarios of a reduced troop presence, performing role-playing exercises and studying historical parallels.

Would the Iraqi government find its way, or would the country divide along sectarian lines? Would al-Qaida take over? Would Iran? Would U.S. security improve or deteriorate? Does the answer depend on how, when and how many U.S. troops depart?

Some military officers contend that, regardless of whether Iraq breaks apart or outside actors seek to take over after a U.S. pullout, "there is going to be an outbreak of violence when we leave that makes the [current] instability look like a church picnic," as an officer who has served in Iraq put it.

However, there are no firm conclusions regarding the consequences of a reduction in U.S. troops. A senior administration official closely involved in Iraq policy cautions that "we've got to be very modest about our predictive capabilities."

Playing war games

In April of last year, the Army and Joint Forces Command sponsored a war game called Unified Quest 2007 at the Army War College.

It assumed the partition of an "Iraq-like" country, said one player, retired Army Col. Richard Sinnreich, with U.S. troops moving quickly out of the capital to redeploy in the far north and south.

"We have obligations to the Kurds and the Kuwaitis, and they also offer the most stable and secure locations from which to continue," he said.

"Even then, the end-of-game assessment wasn't very favorable" to the United States.

Anderson, the retired Marine, has conducted nearly a dozen Iraq-related war games for the military over the past two years, many premised on a U.S. combat pullout by a set date — leaving only advisers and support units — and concluded that partition would result.

The games also predicted that Iran would intervene on one side of a Shiite civil war and would become bogged down in southern Iraq.

T.X. Hammes, another retired Marine colonel, said an extended Iranian presence in Iraq could lead to increased intervention by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states on the other side.

"If that happens," Hammes said, "I worry that the Iranians come to the conclusion they have to do something to undercut ... the Saudis." Their best strategy, he said, "would be to stimulate insurgency among the Shiites in Saudi Arabia."

In a secret war game conducted in December at an office building near the Pentagon, more than 20 participants from the military, the CIA, the State Department and the private sector spent three days examining what might unfold if the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group were implemented.

One question involved how Syria and Iran might respond to the U.S. diplomatic outreach proposed by the bipartisan group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.

The gamers concluded that Iran would be difficult to engage because its divided government is incapable of delivering on its promises. Role-players representing Syria did engage with the U.S. diplomats, but linked helping to a lessening of U.S. pressure in Lebanon.

The bottom line, one participant said, was "pretty much what we are seeing" since the Bush administration began intermittent talks with Syria and Iran: not much progress or tangible results.

The Bush vision

What is perhaps most striking about the military's simulations is that its post-drawdown scenarios focus on civil war and regional intervention and upheaval rather than the establishment of an al-Qaida sanctuary in Iraq.

Bush, however, sees that as the primary risk of withdrawal. "It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al-Qaida," he said at a news conference last week. "It would mean that we'd be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we'd allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan." If U.S. troops leave too soon, Bush said, they would probably "have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous."

Withdrawal would also "confuse and frighten friends and allies in the region and embolden Syria and especially Iran, which would then exert its influence throughout the Middle East," the president said.

Bush is not alone in his description of the al-Qaida threat should the United States leave Iraq too soon. "There's not a doubt in my mind that Osama bin Laden's one goal is to take over the Kingdom of the Two Mosques [Saudi Arabia] and re-establish the caliphate," or Islamic rule, that ended with the Ottoman Empire, said a former senior military official now at a Washington think tank. "It would be very easy for them to set up camps and run them in Anbar and Najaf" provinces in Iraq.

U.S. intelligence analysts, however, note that al-Qaida's Iraq branch takes inspiration but not orders from bin Laden. Its enemies — the overwhelming majority of whom are Iraqis — reside in Baghdad and Shiite-majority areas of Iraq, not in Saudi Arabia or the United States. While intelligence officials have described the Sunni insurgent group calling itself al-Qaida in Iraq as an "accelerant" for violence, they have cited domestic sectarian divisions as the main impediment to peace.

In a report released this week, Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned that al-Qaida is "only one part" of a spectrum of Sunni extremist groups. Military officials have said in background briefings that al-Qaida is responsible for about 15 percent of the attacks, Cordesman said, although the group is "highly effective" and probably does "the most damage in pushing Iraq towards civil war."

Moderate lawmakers such as Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., have concluded that a unified Iraqi government is not on the near horizon and have called for redeployment, change of mission and a phased drawdown of U.S. forces. Far from protecting U.S. interests, the continuation of Bush's policy poses "extreme risks for U.S. national security," Lugar said in a recent speech.

Critics of complete withdrawal charge that "those advocating [it] just don't understand the serious consequences of doing so," said Wayne White, a former deputy director of the Near East division of the State Department's Intelligence and Research Bureau.

White, speaking at a recent symposium on Iraq, addressed the possibility of unpalatable withdrawal consequences by rephrasing Winston Churchill's famous statement about democracy. "I posit that withdrawal from Iraq is the worst possible option, except for all the others."