Pentagon studies fallback options in Iraq

The Pentagon is actively considering a series of fallback positions for Iraq in the event that the Bush administration's plan of expanding the US military presence fails. Among the options are adoption of the "El Salvador model," which would see Washington withdraw most of its 150,000-plus troops and replace them with a few hundred, or few thousand, military advisers. A more drastic option also being looked at is to retreat inside Baghdad's Green Zone and the heavily fortified airport on the outskirts of the city. An adviser familiar with discussions inside the Pentagon said there was great pessimism about whether the troop "surge" would work, and military planners were studying a range of alternatives. The Los Angeles Times reported on Mar. 12 that the Pentagon is considering a gradual withdrawal of troops and a shift in emphasis to training and advising Iraqi forces, a plan referred to inside the Pentagon as the El Salvador model. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the US sent 55 advisers, members of the Green Berets, to support the government and security forces, an operation judged a success by Washington. Andrew Krepinovich, a respected strategic analyst who advises the Pentagon on Iraq, said that the El Salvador model was being actively discussed, but he did not know whether it was being taken seriously. Krepinovich, a former lieutenant-colonel who heads the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the problem with the model "is you need some kind of government to support and the government has to have some legitimacy and loyalty." He questioned whether there was such a government in Iraq. Winslow Wheeler, a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information thinktank, who was involved in El Salvador, also said the El Salvador model was not viable in Iraq. "It is not sufficient to train indigenous forces. They have to have a government they are willing to die for. There is no moderate center in Iraq for which people are willing to die."