One Utah

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has written a letter to Senator Hillary Clinton in which he confirms that “planning is indeed taking place” at the Department of Defense for withdrawal from Iraq.

Talking Points Memo has a copy of the letter and a response from Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines. The Gates letter comes in the wake of a partisan political attack on July 16 by DOD Under Secretary Eric Edelman, a Dick Cheney operative who responded to a request for information from Senator Clinton by saying any discussion of withdrawal planning “reinforces enemy propaganda.”

Here is an excerpt from the full letter (emphasis added):

[It is] the Department’s long-standing practice and policy spanning decades and multiple Administrations that operational military plans, including contingency plans, are not routinely shared with the Congress (or with other departments of the Executive Branch). The are a number of time-proven reasons for this policy, including considerations of operational security, the fact that plans are continuously modified as required by changing security conditions, and the need to protect the operations commander’s ability to implement the plan as flexibly as the situation warrants…

All this said, I would be pleased to work with you and the Senate Armed Services Committee to establish a process to keep you apprised of the conceptual thinking, factors, considerations, questions and objectives associated with drawdown planning.

Further, you may rest assured that such planning is indeed taking place with my active involvement as well as that of senior military and civilian officials and our commanders in the field. I consider this contingency planning to be a priority for this Department.

Some were expecting Secretary Gates to fire Eric Edelman. In the letter, Gates does not even criticize his subordinate for impugning the patriotism of a U.S. senator.

UPDATE: From Slate’s Fred Kaplan, citing an anonymous source:

One officer who’s familiar with Iraq planning put it this way to me: “No one who understands the situation is optimistic. I think the division among those who have thought deeply about the situation is mainly between those who are still fighting and trying to influence the outcome and those who have concluded that the principal objective must now become disengagement.”

This entry was posted Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 10:09 am and is filed under Disaster, Iraq, Military, National Politics, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.