This starts out like that old "if a tree falls in the forest" saying.
If the U.S. returns large portions of land to the Iraqi people, is it meaningful if most of that land is uninhabited desert?
A national security expert "has a valid point" when he says that turning over large portions of battle space to Iraqi forces is meaningless if most of that land is desert, a top U.S. commander in Iraq said Friday.
But Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the U.S. commander in charge of training Iraq forces, told Pentagon reporters he "stands by" the March 17 assessment of his colleague, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Baghdad.
Chiarelli, who is commanding general of Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said March 17 that the coalition's goal is to turn over control of 75 percent of the country's territory to the Iraqi security forces by summer's end.
But Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, believes the hand-over emphasis is "nonsense."
With almost the entire western half of Iraq virtually empty desert, "the figures vastly overestimate the actual area of influence and are at least as meaningless as the worst reporting on pacification in Vietnam," Cordesman wrote in a March 22 paper for CSIS.
"The Iraqi forces don't control anything like these areas, ignoring what 'control' of empty desert means."
Supposedly, we're still handing back more land to Iraq, so eventually Baghdad and other highly-populated areas will be included in the hand-over, but for right now, everyone's deciding to make a big deal over the return of some sand (at least they are in this country).
[Iraq], [Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey], [Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli], [Anthony Cordesman], [US generals celebrate the return of some sand to the Iraqi people], [that turning over large portions of battle space to Iraqi forces is meaningless if most of that land is desert]
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