US Commanders Admit: We Face a Vietnam-Style Collapse

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0301-01.htm

US Commanders Admit: We Face a Vietnam-Style Collapse
by Simon Tisdall

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

The officers - combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency - are charged with implementing the "new way forward" strategy announced by George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial "surge" of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.

But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations.

"They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day," he said.

By improving security, the plan's short-term aim is to create time and space for the Iraqi government to bring rival Shia, Sunni and Kurd factions together in a process of national reconciliation, American officials say. If that works within the stipulated timeframe, longer term schemes for rebuilding Iraq under the so-called "go long" strategy will be set in motion.

more...

[Skink]

1. Even Friedman stopped with the 6 months nonsense.

[MUAD_DIB]

5. That's their ever moving benchmark/stock answer. All BS all the time.

[SharonAnn]

6. I don't think they've got six months.

[Dhalgren]

2. Grim and grimmer...

K&R...

[Demeter]

3. Back When This Whole Debacle Started, Those With Honesty Said

we'd be lucky to have as good an outcome in Iraq as we did in Vietnam!

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Peace is at hand.

[Nimrod2005]

7. OF course, now they wake up, now they tell us........nt

[reprobate]

8. I don't want one more American or one more Iraqi hurt. Having said that, I find

myself ambivalent about the outcome of this fiasco. While it's no doubt clear at this point that this war is already lost, I find myself wishing that it be lost so badly that it's outcome will haunt the Bush family and every republican politician who supported it unto their seventh generation.

May the name 'George W. Bush' and the name 'Benedict Arnold' be spoken in the same breath with the word TRAITOR.