Giffords: U.S. stretched to limit for Iraq war

Thursday, April 10, 2008
Green Valley News
By Jim Lamb

American military forces are stretched to the limit over the war in Iraq, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., told reporters by phone Wednesday.

In a conference call with Southern Arizona journalists, she said Iraq should use some of its oil millions to help pay for the war.

Giffords came to the phone from a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, one of four congressional committees faced over two days by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of American forces in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq.

Giffords said U.S. forces are now getting only a year of relief time at home after a tour of duty, where normally it should be three years.

And Giffords said the U.S. cannot afford to spend $400 million a day prosecuting the war in Iraq.

She said Iraq, which is making money from its huge oil sales, should step up and assume more of the cost of the war.

Two of her military advisers, retired Army Chief of Staff John Wickham Jr., and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Donald W. Shepherd, joined her on the call. Both now live in Southern Arizona.

No matter when Americans start to pull out of Iraq, she said, it will be a complex project taking time.

The United States will leave behind much of its military equipment for Iraq’s use, but what that does come home will have to be decontaminated, a lengthy costly program.

And she said she hopes the United States doesn’t leave behind wrecked, damaged equipment in need of repair. Wickham said, “we turned over the worst we had so we could buy new. We need to do better than that.”

Giffords said she expects to continue the financial support of the war, and hopes the “surge” of 130,000 extra troops will start to reverse.

The Pentagon attributes the surge to some reduction in warfare there.

But the withdrawals probably won’t actually start January 2011.

Giffords also warned that so much concentration on Iraq is taking attention from two other hot spots-Afghanistan where the Taliban is again gaining force, and Pakistan where Al-Qaida is becoming a growing threat.

Gen. Wickham was critical of some of America’s weapons of war deployed in battle.

“We’ve got military airplanes 50 years old” that are flying. he said.

He said America is war-weary, and said we need to end involvement “without seeming to cut and run.”

Wickham also said the greatest threat to world security is no longer Iraq, but “Israel versus Iran.”

Giffords said U.S. forces will remain in Iraq even when the internal strife ends there.

And Wickham said, “if we don’t fix it now, we’ll have to go back.”

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