SOUTHCOM Chief: ‘Other Ways’ U.S. Could Have Withdrawn Troops from Iraq

GRIFFIN: “Just follow up. Your son Roberto was killed in Afghanistan —“
KELLY: “He was.”
GRIFFIN: “— in 2010. You served time in Iraq. Could we get your assessment of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been prosecuted in the recent years and what you think could have been done differently so maybe ISIS and Taliban wouldn’t be as resurgent as they are right now?”
KELLY: “I just — I can talk Iraq, I have got two tours there but I’m a military man and, you know, professional and I understand how these things can be done. I think if the ground commanders there as we listened to [indecipherable],  he talks about keeping as many troops there for as long as he can. When I was in Iraq, Anbar province, we were  — there was remarkable improvement in their security forces. As you all know, the awaking started there first and kind of metastasized around the country. We are very proud of the fact that the two Iraqi divisions that we in the Anbar province organized, trained and equipped ended up being the best Iraqi division. They grew up great on their own but we always had advisers with them. I believe the — this war stuff is hard and it’s not for — it’s not for the untrained and the unadvised. I would say that to keep sufficient numbers of intel people to provide obvious intel advisers to — to critique the commanders and the NCOs on their operations -- not to command but to critique, to suggest whispering in their ear. We know how to do this, we were doing that in Anbar province. When they moved one of those divisions down to Al Basra, when the 14th division collapsed, we had advisers with them. It was the eighth division, they did a superb job and they went to other parts. So the mentorship, the advising is what makes those things. The equipment is important but it doesn’t come close to having people that are with them, and over time have less and less involvement until you come to some steady state number of people."
GRIFFIN: “So you’re saying it was a mistake to go pull out of Iraq?”
KELLY: “I’m saying that there’s others way to have done it at much smaller numbers than we had there certainly at the height of the war.”