[Ninong]

What do you think about the Iraq Study Group's report?

This was supposed to be the vehicle that would give the Bush Administration political cover to change course in Iraq. At least that was the hope of former President George H. W. Bush and his closest friends and advisors from the first Bush Administration. Instead it appears that the current President Bush has decided to listen to a "higher father" again. He has publicly disagreed with some of the conclusions of this bi-partisan commission and has already dismissed some of their recommendations as unacceptable.

I agree with the Iraq Study Group's conclusion that our actions in Iraq to date have failed and that the country is in danger of slipping beyond our control within a matter of weeks. I would go even further and say that we have very little control over the level of violence there right now.

It's obvious from the recommendations made by the ISG that they are looking for a way out, not a "path to victory." It's interesting that it was James Baker, and not Lee Hamilton, who cautioned that the ISG's recommendations were not an a la carte menu from which to pick and choose only those recommendations that complemented the administration's current policy. Baker warned that the adoption of all 79 recommendations was essential to achieve "a better outcome." You won't find the word "victory" anywhere in the entire report.

Sen. John McCain is urging that we send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. There is every indication that the Bush Administration is giving serious consideration to doing exactly that. Sending any additional troops to Iraq is something the ISG explicitly advised against doing.

I don't think sending 20,000 to 30,000 additional troops will make any difference at this point. I think General Eric Shinseki was right when he advised that it would take "several hundred thousand troops" to occupy Iraq. If President Bush wants to achieve the sort of "victory" he has always talked about, then he would have to send in an additional 250,000 troops. Obviously that's not an option. We don't have 250,000 additional combat-ready troops nor the equipment to supply them. And the American people would not sit still for anything close to this number of additional troops being sent over there.

Sen. Rick Santorum, following the 95-2 vote to confirm Robert Gates as the new Secretary of Defense, spoke for an hour on the Senate floor warning the country that anything less than total victory in Iraq was unthinkable. That's why Santorum voted against Gates' confirmation. He didn't think Rumsfeld should have been dismissed in the first place. Santorum didn't bother to explain exactly what we would have to do to accomplish this total victory. Is he willing to reinstitute the draft? Is he willing to double or triple our spending on this war? We have already spent $400 billion and current estimates are that it will cost us well in excess of $1 trillion before we are through. A military victory in Iraq is really not possible at this point. It is too screwed up for that option to be given serious consideration.

Iraq is a mess! And it is getting worse by the day. I don't know if the Iraq Study Group's recommendations will work or not but I do know that I have very little confidence that the people who got us into this mess will be capable of getting us out if left to their own devices. I suspect that our only realistic option at this point is to get the hell out as soon as possible. In a recent poll, 60% of the American people believe we should withdraw all troops from Iraq within six months. In that same poll, 27% of the public said they approved of the way President Bush is handling the Iraq situation.

__________________________________________________ _______

Here is what others are saying about the Iraq Study Group's report:

"In all my time in Washington I've never seen such smugness, arrogance, or such insufferable moral superiority," Bennett wrote on the National Review website. "Self-congratulatory. Full of itself. Horrible." -- That's what well known moralist and author of The Book of Virtues, William J. Bennet had to say about it. I believe the "J" stands for Jabba-the-Hutt. Bennet is a recognized expert on "insufferable moral superiority."

Comedian Rush Limbaugh called it "The Iraq Surrender Group."

Rupert Murdoch's New York Post used the front page for an editorial cartoon:


Finally admitting that everything in their so-called newspaper, like everything on their Fox News channel, is really opinion and not news reporting.

[Samper]

George

I have arguements for and against almost every issue that comes to my attention as far as this war goes. You're so much more informed than I am on every issue that comes up. I have a few questions for you if you or anyone else feels like taking the time to answer them.

Provided we slowly withdraw instead of permanently occupy what state will this leave their country in? Total chaos? Should we care or just let them duke it out? If we do leave does that leave our home land more vulnerable than before? Does that show weakness on our part or fuel their anti American fires, should we care? I don't believe that our current administration is capable is fixing this mess either. I was relieved by the outcome of the mid term elections and am looking forward to a new president. We need a responsible, cooperative, intelligent forward thinking leader instead of the studdering, thickheaded idiot that we have been dealing with. I nominate Steven Colbert.

Would our country do itself a great service if we just brought everybody home, closed our borders. Restructured our economy, technology and political system for about 10-15 years before we decided to venture back out into the global community?

I have a hard time believing that we wouldn't be able to supply the number of troops needed with the supplies to do the job. I've been to the supply rooms at Fort Bragg and Fort Benning for the Special Forces and Infantry....they're huge areas full of warehouses, full and I mean full of extra equipment. I'm not for sending in more troops but then again I'm not for withdrawing with what little I know about the situation. Please help me make an informed decision about all of this.

I shudder to think of the state our world is in socially. This war is just a small piece in the jigsaw puzzle of problems that I feel we are facing. I'm not a religious zealot and don't want to sound like one but I have a strange feeling that the end is drawing near...atleast for our society and way of life if not for the whole world. I picture Mad Max beyond the thunderdome. 3 factories have shut down in my home town within the past year leaving over 1000 people looking for jobs. All 3 factories moved to China. I'm honestly scared for the future. I'm about to get married and one day we will want children. I know that in history there have been plenty of people who were worried about the future state of things but something about the way the whole world is running just doesn't seem right...it's eerie.

[Ninong]

I don't like our options in Iraq. I believe our invasion of Iraq will go down as the worst strategic blunder in the history of our country.

The Iraq Study Group, under the leadership of former Secretary of State James Baker, a very close family friend of former President George H. W. Bush, has been secretly talking to both the Iranians and the Syrians in an attempt to initiate a political solution in Iraq. The ISG has recommended that we undertake unconditional diplomatic discussions with both Iran and Syria. The current president has already shot down that option by setting out preconditions that are unacceptable to Iran and Syria. Anyone who is not blind could have seen this coming because Condi Rice was dissing the Syrians while Baker's representatives were secretly talking to them.

We already know what the other states in the region want. That's why the ISG mentions resolving the Israeli-Palestinian problem as being central to achieving a lasting political solution in Iraq. That's why the ISG says that Israel must return the Golan Heights to Syria. Prime Minister Olmert has already denounced the ISG. Syria will cooperate with us in Iraq but only if they get back the Golan Heights. Iran is playing hard to get right now because they have the upper hand over there. On the one hand, they don't want us to succeed in Iraq but on the other hand, they don't want Iraq to dissolve into anarchy with millions of refugees fleeing into Iran. Saudi Arabia is already funding the Sunni insurgents in their battle with the Shiite militias.

Bush has already said that he won't talk to the Iranians unless they first halt all of their current nuclear programs. In truth, we have been planning an air strike against Iran for the past couple of years now. One of the things that messed up our plans was the unfortunate outcome of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon. Instead of Hezbollah being weakened, they are now threatening to overthrow the present moderate, pro-American Lebanese government. We didn't expect things to turn out as badly as they did in Lebanon. The Israelis did not accomplish what they or the Bush Administration expected. Condi Rice famously referred to the deaths of hundreds of women and children in Lebanon as the "birth pangs of a new Middle East."

We do not have sufficient combat-ready troops to substantially increase our military presence in Iraq. The new commandant of the Marine Corps said just last week that the Corps has been stretched too far already. The Marines do seven-month tours with seven or eight months off in between. Most of them have now done three tours. The regular Army does one-year tours and the National Guard has been doing 16-month tours -- one-year tours that are routinely extended an extra four months. More than 80% of Army National Guard units have now served in Iraq. We have been unable to properly equip the troops we have over there now much less keep up with maintenance of equipment that is wearing out twice as fast as anticipated because of the harsh desert conditions. We are even running low on ammunition.

Right now Iraq is engaged in a civil war! The Shiites are expelling the Sunnis from areas that they want to control and the Sunnis are fighting back. The Sunnis dominate al-Anbar province. We have been taking heavy casualties there for more than a year now and we are making absolutely no progress there as far as containment is concerned. Yes, al-Anbar is a haven for al-Qaida but it has been for some time now and according to our own military experts in Iraq, al-Qaida represents less than 3% of the total violence and their numbers are down from a high of around 1,300 to about 600 today.

President Bush insists on blaming the current level of violence on al-Qaida when in fact it is sectarian violence between the Shiites and the Sunnis. It's true al-Qaida had a hand in stirring it up in the first place but 98% of the present violence is what anyone who is not blind would call a civil war. Bush can't call it a civil war because he previously promised to withdraw our troops if a full civil war ever broke out.

A military solution is no longer an option for so many reasons. We are faced with two possible outcomes at this point:

(1) Complete chaos: Shiites and Sunnis increasing the level of open warfare against each other with the very real possibility that Iran will step in on the side of the Shiites if Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Jordan come to the aid of the Sunnis.

(2) A negotiated political solution that has the support of Iran and the Arab countries so that we can withdraw without the entire region going to war.

It appears that the Bush Administration is intent on staying as long as necessary to "complete the mission," whatever that means. Bush has repeated that he will not withdraw troops until the mission is complete. That's not a realistic option because the violence is getting worse and worse by the day and we have been unable to do anything to halt this trend because we have insufficient forces there to do the job. Unless we are willing to triple our forces immediately (something that is out of the question), we need to work on a political solution that will allow us to leave.

[Ninong]

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) spoke about the Iraq war last night on the floor of the Senate:

“I, for one,” said Smith, “am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore....I would have never voted for this conflict had I reason to believe that the intelligence we had was not accurate. It was not accurate, but that is history.”

[Ninong]

I just watched an extended video clip of Sen. Gordon Smith's remarks on the floor of the Senate last night about the situation in Iraq and it was a very impassioned plea. The video is much more moving than any press reports can convey but here's a little more detail from the S.J. Mercury News:

GOP senator says war may be 'criminal'

MATTHEW DALY

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, a Republican who voted in favor of the Iraq war in 2002 and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is "absurd" and "may even be criminal."

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Smith called for changes in U.S. policy that could include rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said he never would have voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate.

"I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day," Smith said. "That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore. ... So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home."

A spokesman said Friday that Smith did not mean to call the war criminal in a legal sense.

Smith is up for re-election in 2008. His comments come a month after Republicans lost control of Congress - in large part because of voter unhappiness with the Iraq war - and shortly after the Iraq Study Group issued a blistering criticism of the administration's handling of the war.

Smith said he is "tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the war on terror more intelligently than we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way."

[Ninong]

Update: You can see video of the speech here.

The speech in its entirety:

Mr. President, I know it is probably appropriate to speak of our colleagues, and I will do that on the record. I rise tonight, however, to speak about a subject heavy on my mind. It is the subject of the war in Iraq.

I have never worn the uniform of my country. I am not a soldier or a veteran. I regret that fact. It is one of the regrets of my life. But I am a student of history, particularly military history, and it is that perspective which I brought to the Senate 10 years ago as a newly elected Member of this Chamber.

When we came to the vote on Iraq, it was an issue of great moment for me. No issue is more difficult to vote on than war and peace, because it involves the lives of our soldiers, our young men and women. It involves the expenditure of our treasure, putting on the line the prestige of our country. It is not a vote taken lightly. I have tried to be a good soldier in this Chamber. I have tried to support our President, believing at the time of the vote on the war in Iraq that we had been given good intelligence and knowing that Saddam Hussein was a menace to the world, a brutal dictator, a tyrant by any standard, and one who threatened our country in many different ways, through the financing and fomenting of terrorism. For those reasons and believing that we would find weapons of mass destruction, I voted aye.

I have been rather silent on this question ever since. I have been rather quiet because, when I was visiting Oregon troops in Kirkuk in the Kurdish area, the soldiers said to me: Senator, don't tell me you support the troops and not our mission. That gave me pause. But since that time, there have been 2,899 American casualties. There have been over 22,000 American men and women wounded. There has been an expenditure of $290 billion a figure that approaches the expenditure we have every year on an issue as important as Medicare. We have paid a price in blood and treasure that is beyond calculation by my estimation.

Now, as I witness the slow undoing of our efforts there, I rise to speak from my heart. I was greatly disturbed recently to read a comment by a man I admire in history, one Winston Churchill, who after the British mandate extended to the peoples of Iraq for 5 years, wrote to David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of England:

"At present we are paying 8 millions a year for the privilege of living on an ungrateful volcano."

When I read that, I thought, not much has changed. We have to learn the lessons of history and sometimes they are painful because we have made mistakes.

Even though I have not worn the uniform of my country, I, with other colleagues here, love this Nation. I came into politics because I believed in some things. I am unusually proud of the fact of our recent history, the history of our Nation since my own birth. At the end of the Second World War, there were 15 nations on earth that could be counted as democracies that you and I would recognize. Today there are 150 nations on earth that are democratic and free. That would not have happened had the United States been insular and returned to our isolationist roots, had we laid down the mantle of world leadership, had we not seen the importance of propounding and encouraging the spread of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and the values of our Bill of Rights. It is a better world because of the United States of America, and the price we have paid is one of blood and treasure.

Now we come to a great crossroads. A commission has just done some, I suppose, good work. I am still evaluating it. I welcome any ideas now because where we are leaves me feeling much like Churchill, that we are paying the price to sit on a mountain that is little more than a volcano of ingratitude.

Yet as I feel that , I remember the pride I felt when the statue of Saddam Hussein came down. I remember the thrill I felt when three times Iraqis risked their own lives to vote democratically in a way that was internationally verifiable as well as legitimate and important. Now all of those memories seem much like ashes to me.

The Iraq Study Group has given us some ideas. I don't know if they are good or not. It does seem to me that it is a recipe for retreat. It is not cut and run, but it is cut and walk. I don't know that that is any more honorable than cutting and running, because cutting and walking involves greater expenditure of our treasure, greater loss of American lives.

Many things have been attributed to George Bush. I have heard him on this floor blamed for every ill, even the weather. But I do not believe him to be a liar. I do not believe him to be a traitor, nor do I believe all the bravado and the statements and the accusations made against him. I believe him to be a very idealistic man. I believe him to have a stubborn backbone. He is not guilty of perfidy, but I do believe he is guilty of believing bad intelligence and giving us the same.

I can't tell you how devastated I was to learn that in fact we were not going to find weapons of mass destruction. But remembering the words of the soldier--don't tell me you support the troops but you don't support my mission--I felt the duty to continue my support . Yet I believe the President is guilty of trying to win a short war and not understanding fully the nature of the ancient hatreds of the Middle East. Iraq is a European creation. At the Treaty of Versailles, the victorious powers put together Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia tribes that had been killing each other for time immemorial. I would like to think there is an Iraqi identity. I would like to remember the purple fingers raised high. But we can not want democracy for Iraq more than they want it for themselves. And what I find now is that our tactics there have failed.

Again, I am not a soldier, but I do know something about military history. And what that tells me is when you are engaged in a war of insurgency, you can't clear and leave. With few exceptions, throughout Iraq that is what we have done. To fight an insurgency often takes a decade or more. It takes more troops than we have committed. It takes clearing, holding, and building so that the people there see the value of what we are doing. They become the source of intelligence, and they weed out the insurgents. But we have not cleared and held and built. We have cleared and left, and the insurgents have come back.

I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal . I cannot support that anymore . I believe we need to figure out how to fight the war on terror and to do it right. So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home.

There are no good options, as the Iraq Study Group has mentioned in their report. I am not sure cutting and walking is any better. I have little confidence that the Syrians and the Iranians are going to be serious about helping us to build a stable and democratic Iraq. I am at a crossroads as well. I want my constituents to know what is in my heart, what has guided my votes.

What will continue to guide the way I vote is simply this: I do not believe we can retreat from the greater war on terror. Iraq is a battlefield in that larger war. But I do believe we need a presence there on the near horizon at least that allows us to provide intelligence, interdiction, logistics, but mostly a presence to say to the murderers that come across the border: We are here, and we will deal with you. But we have no business being a policeman in someone else's civil war.

I welcome the Iraq Study Group's report, but if we are ultimately going to retreat, I would rather do it sooner than later. I am looking for answers, but the current course is unacceptable to this Senator. I suppose if the President is guilty of one other thing, I find it also in the words of Winston Churchill. He said:

After the First World War, let us learn our lessons. Never, never believe that any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on this strange voyage can measure the tides and the hurricanes. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

That is a lesson we are learning again. I am afraid, rather than leveling with the American people and saying this was going to be a decade-long conflict because of the angst and hatred that exists in that part of the world, that we tried to win it with too few troops in too fast a time. Lest anyone thinks I believe we have failed militarily, please understand I believe when President Bush stood in front of ``mission accomplished'' on an aircraft carrier that , in purely military terms, the mission was accomplished in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But winning a battle, winning a war, is different than winning a peace.

We were not prepared to win the peace by clearing, holding, and building. You don't do that fast and you don't do it with too few troops. I believe now that we must either determine to do that , or we must redeploy in a way that allows us to continue to prosecute the larger war on terror. It will not be pretty. We will pay a price in world opinion. But I, for one, am tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run, or cut and walk, or let us fight the war on terror more intelligently than we have, because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way.

Those are my feelings. I regret them. I would have never voted for this conflict had I reason to believe that the intelligence we had was not accurate. It was not accurate, but that is history. Now we must find a way to make the best of a terrible situation, at a minimum of loss of life for our brave fighting men and women. So I will be looking for every opportunity to clear, build, hold, and win or how to bring our troops home.

I yield the floor.

[Ninong]

The Iraq Study Group Report, all 160 pages: here.

[T]here is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.

[Ninong]

The Defense Department and the intelligence community have not invested sufficient people and resources to understand the political and military threat to American men and women in the armed forces. Congress has appropriated almost $2 billion this year for countermeasures to protect our troops in Iraq against improvised explosive devices, but the administration has not put forward a request to invest comparable resources in trying to understand the people who fabricate, plant, and explode those devices.

We were told that there are fewer than 10 analysts on the job at the Defense Intelligence Agency who have more than two years' experience in analyzing the insurgency. Capable analysts are rotated to new assignments, and on-the-job training begins anew. Agencies must have a better personnel system to keep analytic expertise focused on the insurgency. They are not doing enough to map the insurgency, dissect it, and understand it on a national and provincial level. The analytic community's knowledge of the organization, leadership, financing, and operations of militias, as well as their relationship to government security forces, also falls far short of what policy makers need to know.

[Ninong]

[W]e must not lose sight of the importance of the situation inside Afghanistan and the renewed threat posed by the Taliban. Afghanistan's borders are porous. If the Taliban were to control more of Afghanistan, it could provide al Qaeda the political space to conduct terrorist operations. This development would destabilize the region and have national security implications for the United States and other countries around the world. Also, the significant increase in poppy production in Afghanistan fuels the illegal drug trade and narco-terrorism.

The huge focus of U.S. political, military, and economic support on Iraq has necessarily diverted attention from Afghanistan. As the United States develops its approach toward Iraq and the Middle East, it must also give priority to the situation in Afghanistan. Doing so may require increased political, security, and military measures.

[Ninong]

All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans' lack of language and cultural understanding. Our embassy of 1,000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency. In a conflict that demands effective and efficient communication with Iraqis, we are often at a disadvantage. There are still far too few Arab language-proficient military and civilian officers in Iraq, to the detriment of the U.S. mission.

[Ninong]

[T]he long-term commitment of American ground forces to Iraq at current levels is adversely affecting Army readiness, with less than a third of the Army units currently at high readiness levels. The Army is unlikely to be able to meet the next rotation of troops in Iraq without undesirable changes in its deployment practices. The Army is now considering breaking its compact with the National Guard and Reserves that limits the number of years that these citizen-soldiers can be deployed. Behind this short-term strain is the longer-term risk that the ground forces will be impaired in ways that will take years to reverse.

[Ninong]

[M]ost of the costs of the war show up not in the normal budget request but in requests for emergency supplemental appropriations. This means that funding requests are drawn up outside the normal budget process, are not offset by budgetary reductions elsewhere, and move quickly to the White House with minimal scrutiny. Bypassing the normal review erodes budget discipline and accountability.

[...]

[C]ircumvention of the budget process by the executive branch erodes oversight and review by Congress. The authorizing committees (including the House and Senate Armed Services committees) spend the better part of a year reviewing the President's annual budget request. When the President submits an emergency supplemental request, the authorizing committees are bypassed. The request goes directly to the appropriations committees, and they are pressured by the need to act quickly so that troops in the field do not run out of funds. The result is a spending bill that passes Congress with perfunctory review. Even worse, the must-pass appropriations bill becomes loaded with special spending projects that would not survive the normal review process.

[SPasse]

Hi All,

Being almost as much of a student of history as Ninong, I agree with his assessment of the current situation in Iraq.

A massive deployment of troops (on the scale of ~500,000) would be required to "pacify" Iraq at this point and we have neither the current wherewithal to do so nor the required "national consensus" to build up to that point.

Say what you like about Sadam, he was probably an example of what is required to keep a "country" like Iraq "together". Without a brutal dictator, I believe that Iraq will fragment as surely and completely as did Yugoslavia.

So I will skip right to the "end points" that Ninong mentioned. (Scott gets out his crystal ball)

(1) Complete chaos: Shiites and Sunnis increasing the level of open warfare against each other with the very real possibility that Iran will step in on the side of the Shiites if Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Jordan come to the aid of the Sunnis.

Even if we stay the course (not withdrawal) this could happen and if Bush is still in office he just might sail some more of our carrier groups into the gulf, touching off something like the Armageddon battle of the biblical sort. I.E. try the application of massive force (less the ground troops)

(2) A negotiated political solution that has the support of Iran and the Arab countries so that we can withdraw without the entire region going to war.

That will be a very dicey proposition. We have (lets be nice and say "unknowingly") left a house full of dynamite, on fire. Giving any further geopolitical influence to Iran and/or Syria should not give us any "solace" either.

Like Ninong said, I see no really satisfactory outcomes, just possibly a lesser set of evils.

Regards,

Scott

[Penguin]

This was supposed to be the vehicle that would give the Bush Administration political cover to change course in Iraq. At least that was the hope of former President George H. W. Bush and his closest friends and advisors from the first Bush Administration. Instead it appears that the current President Bush has decided to listen to a "higher father" again. He has publicly disagreed with some of the conclusions of this bi-partisan commission and has already dismissed some of their recommendations as unacceptable.

To me this is further proof of just how out of touch the Administration is with the will of the American people, and with reality.

It's more clear than ever to me that there is no job to be finished. We need to get out ASAP.

I also think Sen. Smith gives the President too much credit when he says Bush didn't know the pre-war intelligence was bad.

[Ninong]

It has been widely reported that new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten has been trying for the past several weeks to force the President to listen to opposing views on Iraq. He has invited small groups of Republican members of Congress who are now against the war to come in and explain their views to Bush in private.

I don't see any evidence that Bush has changed his approach. He may not be as delusional as he was a few months ago but he is every bit as hardheaded and determined to achieve "victory." Even Gen. John Abizaid has said that "winning militarily" is not possible; it must be a political solution.

The Administration has already abandoned almost all of their previous goals for Iraq. They are now reduced to settling for a government that can govern, sustain itself and defend itself. This is so much like the last several years of our presence in Vietnam. Kissinger had already promised the North Vietnamese that we had no intentions of overthrowing their government and would not oppose their overthrowing the South Vietnamese government provided they allowed us a graceful, face-saving exit. Those negotiations dragged on for years while tens of thousands of American servicemen died for a cause we had already abandoned.

We will probably learn what the Administration's new approach will be sometime late next week. They are seriously considering sending an additional 20,000 troops to Baghdad in an attempt to bring the city under control. No one outside the Administration, with the exception of Sen. John McCain, thinks this will make any difference in the long run. It is very likely that additional American troops will result in increased violence and an increased casualty rate.

We are being shot at in Baghdad by Sunni insurgents and members of the Badr and Mahdi Shiite militias. There aren't many al-Qaida operatives in Baghdad. Most of them are in al-Anbar, where we have been taking heavy casualties. In Baghdad, we are in the middle of a raging civil war and our support for the government is being seen by the Sunnis as support for the Shiite militias that control the police. Then when the Sunnis manage to blow up a couple hundred Shiites in Sadr City, we get blamed by Moqtadr al-Sadr for allowing it to happen. We are being shot at by both sides.

I don't know if the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton committee are workable or not but I do know that the people who got us there haven't done anything right in the past four years and I have little hope that their track record will suddenly change for the better.

Bush is still convinced that all we have to do is stay the course. He thinks that all we have to do is change our tactics and victory will be ours. It's not that simple.

P.S. -- This is not funny: U.S. tries Google for intelligence on Iran! CIA was too busy so the State Department Googled for names to sanction in UN resolution.

[Ninong]

A couple of days ago Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was criticizing the Iraq Study Group's report as dangerous and unacceptable. Of course it's unacceptable to him, as a Kurd he's not interested in sharing the oil revenues, one of the report's recommendations. Has anyone else noticed that the top Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite representatives in this so-called unity government are each looking our for their own sectarian interests and preparing for the day when the country will be partitioned in one way or another?

Here is what Talabani had to say about the abilities of the United States military in training the Iraqi army and police: “What have they done so far in training the army and the police?” the president said during a news conference here. “What they have done is move from failure to failure.”

If they don't appreciate our help, maybe it's time to leave and let them sort things out on their own? Our moral obligation to fix the mess we created is wearing thin.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Ninong

We will probably learn what the Administration's new approach will be sometime late next week. They are seriously considering sending an additional 20,000 troops to Baghdad in an attempt to bring the city under control.

They changed their minds again. The President will not be delivering the Iraq Policy speech the end of next week as previously planned, he will deliver it in early January. I don't think there's any doubt that he has already decided on sending an additional 20,000 troops to Baghdad, he's just waiting until after the holidays to spring it on us.

[Ninong]

The media are reporting that the Saudis have threatened to openly support the Sunni insurgents in Iraq if we should pull out. Supposedly that "threat" was delivered to Big Time on his recent visit. The truth is that they have been sending money to the insurgents for a good while now, just not through official government channels.

And their ambassador to the U.S. suddenly quit yesterday and is returning home. That was unexpected.

[Ninong]

...That's from the Iraq Study Group Report.

That's where the Bush Administration got their new slogan: A New Way Forward. That may be one of the few things they adopt from the ISG report.

Based on leaked press reports and the thrust of the news in general this past week, it's pretty obvious that we are preparing to send an additional 20,000 troops to Baghdad. I believe that's the reason the President's speech has been delayed until after the holidays.

An article in today's Washington Post sums up our present predicament.

Army, Marine Corps to ask for more troops

Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan cut into global readiness

The Army and Marine Corps are planning to ask incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Congress to approve permanent increases in personnel, as senior officials in both services assert that the nation's global military strategy has outstripped their resources.

[They have been saying this for months now, so this is nothing new.]

In addition, the Army will press hard for "full access" to the 346,000-strong Army National Guard and the 196,000-strong Army Reserves by asking Gates to take the politically sensitive step of easing the Pentagon restrictions on the frequency and duration of involuntary call-ups for reservists, according to two senior Army officials.

[This is a terrible idea! Eighty percent of Guard units have already served in Iraq, most for 16-18 months. I believe present policy restricts the length of time National Guard troops can be called up to 18 months out of five years. They aren't supposed to be Regular Army, they're supposed to be what amounts to state militias available for activation in the event of a national emergency, such as World War II or Korea. The Guard troops are needed at home to handle local emergencies, such as Hurricane Katrina. Louisiana National Guard troops returned home from a long tour in Iraq only to be immediately pressed into local duty dealing with Katrina.

There are 300 Louisiana National Guardsmen patrolling the streets of New Orleans right now, along with 60 State Police Troopers and some 1,400 NOPD officers. I believe the full strength of the NOPD before Katrina was around 1,600. The present population of the city is about half what it was pre-Katrina but the crime rate, almost all drug-related, has skyrocketed.

If the Army needs more troops, Congress should authorize an increase in the size of the Regular Army instead of turning the National Guard and the Army Reserves into R.A. I think they're concerned that they may not be able to substantially increase the force levels without a draft. They're paying huge reenlistment bonuses right now to National Guardsmen to get them to stay in beyond their current obligation.]

The push for more ground troops comes as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sharply decreased the readiness of Army and Marine Corps units rotating back to the United States, compromising the ability of U.S. ground forces to respond to other potential conflicts around the world.

[...]

At least two-thirds of Army units in the United States today are rated as not ready to deploy, as well as lacking in manpower, training and -- most critically -- equipment, according to senior U.S. officials and the Iraq Study Group report. The two ground services estimate that they will need $18 billion a year to repair, replace and upgrade destroyed and worn-out equipment.

[...]

According to Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, the Army and Marine Corps today cannot sustain even a modest increase of 20,000 troops in Iraq. U.S. commanders for Afghanistan have asked for more troops but have not received them, noted the Iraq Study Group report, which called it "critical" for the United Sta