US chief of staff operations director General Carter Ham told a February 25 press briefing that the Pentagon plans to keep its occupation force in Iraq at 140,000 troops after the end of the 30,000-strong US troop "surge" in July.
This announcement belies claims by US Senator John McCain — President George Bush's publicly endorsed Republican successor — that Bush's Iraq war had "turned the corner" toward military success as a result of the troop surge.
In a pitch for support for his presidential candidacy in a context where the majority of US voters oppose the war, McCain told 500 people at a February 25 public meeting in Rocky River, Ohio: "My friends, the war will be over soon."
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll from January 18-22, reported that 63% of registered voters think the US should withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately or within one year.
General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, whom McCain credits with having made the troop surge work, has dismissed the prospect of rapid US military victory in Iraq, declaring on January 22: "We have repeatedly said that there is no light at the end of the tunnel ... We're certainly not dancing in the end zone or anything like that."
Military strains
In order to have enough troops to implement the surge, last April the Pentagon extended US troops' deployments in Iraq from 12 to 15 months. In testimony to the US Senate armed services committee on February 26, US Army chief of staff General George Casey said that the "cumulative effects" of years of war and the extension of deployments had put the US Army under severe strain.
"Desertions and unexcused absences have increased", Casey said. "You're seeing folks not showing up for deployments."
Casey's assessment was supported by a poll of 3400 retired and serving US military officers conducted by the Centre for a New American Security think tank and Foreign Policy magazine. Reuters reported on February 19 that 88% of those polled said the US military "had been stretched dangerously thin by Iraq" and 60% said the US military was weaker than five years ago.
On March 1, Associated Press reported that total US troop fatalities since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq had reached 3973. Last year was the single deadliest year for US troops, with 901 being killed.
By the end of February, 175 British and 133 other foreign occupation troops had died since the 2003 invasion, with 45 British troops killed last year.
There are about 4000 British troops in Iraq. The British government has said it plans to reduce that number to 2500 during the second quarter of this year.
Similarly, the new Rudd Labor government in Australia intends to withdraw 550 combat troops and 65 military trainers from Iraq by June — though Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston told a parliamentary committee on February 19 that this would have been carried out this year even if there hadn't been a change of government in November.
Houston also said that there were 1540 ADF personnel assigned to the Iraq war and that the new Labor government was committed to spending $598 million on the war until at least 2010.
Iraqi suffering
AP also reported that war-related Iraqi casualties increased to 739 in February from 610 January. AP added that the "actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted".
A study published in the highly respected British Lancet medical journal in October 2006 calculated that up to 942,636 Iraqis had "died above what would have been expected on the basis of the pre-invasion crude mortality rate as a consequence of the coalition invasion", and of these deaths, up to 793,663 were due to violence, nearly 60% as a result of gunshot wounds.
The UN estimated that since the US-led invasion, up to 2 million Iraqis have fled to neighbouring countries and that there are 2.5 million internally displaced Iraqis.
"Four million Iraqis cannot guarantee they're going to have food on their table tomorrow", the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, David Shearer, told Reuters news agency on February 12.
Despite this the Iraqi government plans to sharply cut back the country's US$3 billion-a-year food ration system, arguing it has become "too costly". The government's monthly revenues from oil sales are about $5 billion, oil minister Hussein al Shahristani told CNN on March 3, giving it an annual budget of $48 billion.
The Wall Street Journal reported that "the Iraqi government says it wants to move away from expensive subsidies and adopt market mechanisms. That goal has been lauded by the World Bank and others", particularly the US government.
"Aid agencies say the reduction in rations will further hurt Iraqis, many of whom are already facing a humanitarian crisis. The UN says one in four children in Iraq under the age of 5 is chronically malnourished, and at least four million Iraqis are in need of food assistance."
Oil vultures circle
Reuters reported on February 29 that 100 foreign firms, including 10 big US corporations, had registered to compete for oil extraction and service contracts to "help develop" Iraq's oil reserves, believed to be the world's third largest.
Reuters reported that the Iraqi government said it "was close to finishing negotiations with several oil majors for technical support contracts that would hopefully be signed in March". These oil corporations included Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Total and Chevron.
"Iraq currently exploits only a fraction of its reserves, among the cheapest to produce, and international oil firms have been positioning for years to gain access ..."
Prior to the US-led occupation, the US and British "oil majors" were unable to directly profit from exploiting Iraq's oil resources. Iraq's oil industry had been nationalised in 1972.
As the propaganda offensive around Iraq's non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction — used to justify the invasion — was gathering pace, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in September 2002: "The world's biggest oil bonanza in recent memory may be just around the corner, giving US oil companies huge profits ... [Analysts] believe a new, pro-Western government would prompt US petroleum giants to rush into Iraq."
The subsequent "enormous increase in supply", the article said, could "shift the balance of power among the world's major oil producers".