When do American troops overseas stop being called "combat forces"? Are the 50,000+ servicemembers at Ramstein still "occupying" southwestern Germany? Do we still have 35,000+ "combat forces" stationed in Japan? If they're not "combat troops" anymore, when did they shed the moniker? When does overseas combat become overseas garrison? Does it happen when all of the Stryker brigades leave, as Col. Berdy says these brigades "are, and always will be, combat infantry units"? What are the guys left behind, then?

I'm not in the Army, and my time in Iraq was spent confined to a FOB. Only asking because this appears, on the surface, to be about semantics -- though to those soldiers still rolling around Baghdad today in Strykers, I'm sure it's anything but. When does combat stop being combat? When a peace treaty is signed? Wouldn't that mean we're still engaged in combat in the Korean DMZ?

Tom,

There is a bit of info ops going on with this event to make it seem much more than what it is, but it does not make it any less true. This distinction has a lot of "inside baseball" to it with regard to Army and Joint doctrine. It is still an important milestone and a definite transition point---whether that turns out to be a good or bad transition point waits the verdict of history.

4th SBCT, 2nd Infantry Division, i.e. 4-2 SBCT (which like 3-2 SBCT and 5-2 SBCT (soon to be reflagged 2-2 SBCT) has no current actual affiliation with 2ID HQ save a common patch) was the last Brigade Combat Team to come to Iraq not configured as an Advise and Assist Brigade, Brigade Combat Team-Augmented, or Modular Brigade Augmented for Security Force Assistance. It was organized purely for a combat role, although having worked with them at the back end of my last tour/front end of this one for them, they did execute a substantial amount of partnership with ISF and all advisor/mentor efforts were taken out of hide.

Every brigade combat team currently in Iraq naturally still has a substantial combat capability, but their primary mission is to provide security force assistance to the Iraqi Security Force and they are configured in such a way to do so by having over 40 additional field grade officers as the most significant addition. There are other differences but they are not germane to this discussion.

I remind you that 2-25 SBCT operating in northern Iraq has sustained two Killed in Action in recent weeks. They are an Advise and Assist Brigade.

It's definitely true that every U.S. soldier is prepared for combat, but there is very little combat to be found for American forces in Iraq right now. Unless they are in Mosul, the most combat U.S. forces will see is a rocket lobbed into their camp maybe twice a month or a roadside bomb. In Mosul U.S. forces are still heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations, but militants for whatever reason, have not targeted them that much.

It's quite simple actually, the definition is a matter of domestic politics (something I would recommend that this colonel study a bit more). The public wants to think that the soldiers have left Iraq and that the ones left behind won't be fighting. To put it another way: most of us like our comforting lies.

Interesting that http://www.strykernews.com/ (one would think they're putting out the appropriate propaganda), says that the last combat troops are out.....

Semantics matter a lot, when it comes to foreign combat forces possessing ALL the heavy weapons in a supposedly sovereign country. Any Iraqi pol or party that isn't paying lip service to the removal or muzzling of foreign occupation forces will be targeted and lose power to those that do. Both of the two purple-finger Shiite administrations, Jafar's and Maliki's, have made public statements to the effect that they don't want US troops to get too comfortable, at a time when we were losing men daily to Shiite bombs and ambushes.

The embarrassingly open secret is not that we have significant combat power in Iraq, Kuwait and the Gulf carrier/missile fleet, or that our spec ops guys are as apt to ask forgiveness as permission. The unmentionable fact is that Stryker mounted 'sustenance and comfort' brigades are performing the role of the old Republican Guard, in the sense of being way better armed than Iraqi regular army and pesh units that might make a run at the palace (or Kirkuik), or fall to fighting among themselves.

Our military mission is political; stability operations, to steady and develop local governance, no? Trouble is, whichever odd bedfellows emerge in Baghdad won't have a monopoly on lethal force, and wouldn't trust each other if they did.

What kind of hardware are we leaving those guys?

I mean will they have tanks? Will they have aircraft for close air support?

With the insugents no dobt ingrained into the Iraqi armed forces it's hard to imagine trusting anyone with a fighter jet etc. but how will the country defend itself if Iran comes knocking on its door?

First was Mission Complete...well we meant the misson to remove Saddam wa complete
Now there is No more combat in Iraq...well we mean we are not gonig to call it combat, it is support missions with people shooting at each other

Even the economically beleaguered American public is not quite as oblivious or distracted with watching ‘The Real Housewives of New Jersey’ to realize the Obama/DOD term ‘Advise and Assist’ rather than ‘combat troops’ is basically just a advertising ploy and not a very convincing one at that. AMC’s (Mad Men) advertising genius Don Draper could certainly come up with a better and more original gimmick slogan. The political/media assumption behind such absurd semantics is that the American public is not and has not been emotionally engaged in either Iraq or Afghanistan to care about differences in terminology. The political class prefers public detachment from these wars thus, making then less divisive and more amenable to demagoguery. They don’t even ask us to pay for them and that is the ultimate method of inducing public indifference into questions of policy. Only a few military and naval families are interested in these wars and even in that community there is no consensus on the value of the risk and sacrifice.

In the case of war, a president must be seen to follow as well as lead. (Remember how hard the Bush Administration sold the Iraq War in the first place -- months and months of war mongering, demonizing Saddam, raising the specter of mushroom clouds. Even they wouldn't go to war without advance popular support.) Announcing that "all combat troops" are out of Iraq appears to be a step in getting the American public to accept that the Iraq War is ending, if not over. Once they have accepted that, it is much more likely to become true.

For Col. Berdy:

The MSM parrot stories for at least three reasons. First, it is cheaper to publish press releases than do real journalism. Second, critical reporting could lead to lack of access to government sources. Third, many MSM companies are parts of large corporations that extract "profit" from supporting war.

re "Advise and Assist": While Iraq is not as violent as it was at its peak, it is far from peaceful. The idea that people who created this situation initially, and have failed to reverse it in the past 7+ years, are able to successfully train people to wage peace is lunacy. "Advise and Assist" is cover for the real mission of maintaining a quisling government. The post above referring to the Republican Guard is perceptive and correct.

sikis
pornolar

I remember Gordon Duff (http://tinyurl.com/29csgyz) saying similar things about combat troops. He's a marine Vietnam veteran but I kinda share his opinion on that issues.

Though I don't think that most part of American public ever believed the whole story with "all combat troops out of Iraq"