Are they talking about putting DOUBLE the amount of troops in Iraq?

[southernleftylady]

i hear people talking about it on CSPAN but missed why... are "they" talking about bring in double the troops in?

[Bozita]

1. That's from Thomas Friedman's column in today's NYT

[KlatooBNikto]

7. Do you have a link to TF's column?

[G2099]

14. Calling for more troops now . . .

"We've already paid a huge price for the Rumsfeld Doctrine - "Just enough troops to lose." Calling for more troops now, I know, is the last thing anyone wants to hear. But we are fooling ourselves to think that a decent, normal, forward-looking Iraqi politics or army is going to emerge from a totally insecure environment, where you can feel safe only with your own tribe."

~~THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/opinion/15friedman.html?

[clu]

2. It's probably a good start depending on the goal

I read a blurb this spring from some military brass under a previous administration (Carter?) talking about 250k+ troops needed to lock down Iraq.

We all know there's no chance of leaving soon so this doesn't seem unreasonable from them.

[southernleftylady]

5. and where will they get these people from??

[clu]

9. hehe

I dunno but I'm sure we'd find some wherewithal after another terra attack.

[converted_democrat]

20. They just hired 10,000 Ugandans to fight for us.

[funflower]

23. Got a source for that?

[converted_democrat]

25. Here you go, here's a link.........

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=11742


Another http://islandnet.com/~bbcf/_articles/usa_war_resisters_apr05/usa_war_resisters_apr05.htm
And here's another http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/628/628p19i.htm
And another http://uganda.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/05/09/10_000_ugandans_to_work_as_mercenaries_for_usa_in_iraq.html

[leftchick]

13. 250,000 won't "lock down"Iraq!

That is fantasy military thinking again. Much like more bodies(a draft to get them too!) would solve Vietnam. It won't fucking work. It is time for our members in congress to acknowledge that and quit enabling this neo-freak fantasy of a ME occupation.

Bring then the fuck HOME!

:grr:

[leveymg]

3. Predictable Outcome: Twice the Casualties.

:mad: :bounce:

[KlatooBNikto]

8. And a cost of $200 Billion plus per year.

[leveymg]

17. Thanks for the reminder - At Twice the Cost

Let's see, that would bring the annual Iraq War price tag up to close to $300 billion - roughly equal to the entire yearly DoD budget during the early Clinton Administration.

No wonder they wanted to get rid of that guy, and are clinging so desperately to ChimpCo.

:hide: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :dunce: :+ :evilgrin: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :hide:

[KlatooBNikto]

21. You are assuming that the accounting is on the up and up.A very bad

assumption when dealing with the Bush clan.

[NMDemDist2]

4. from where? we don't have another 100k troops even if we wanted

to send that many :puke:

[Ready4Change]

11. Oh yes we do.

I'm not defending the concept of escalation. In fact I'm dead set against it.

But there are three ways of getting more troops into Iraq. The obvious one is the draft, although there is great political pressure against that.

The next is a motivating event, like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Form you own opinion regarding whether these "happen" or are created.

The last is to close stateside facilities like bases to free up their personel. Hmmm, how many bases are they talking of closing down?

[ClintonTyree]

6. Yeah, that the only way...

we can "win" the war there! :eyes: It's all the Liberals fault we're losing, just like in Viet Nam. It couldn't be the fact that the bush administration HAD NO PLAN FOR POST WAR IRAQ! NOOOOO... it's the damn LIEBERALS! :banghead:
These people are SOOOO fucking stupid, my mind reels!

[mopaul]

10. yeah, just keep throwing more meat into the grinder

and money too of course

[sendero]

12. Typical dumbass response to failure..

.... if they're in a hole, they dig faster.

[KG]

15. tom friedman - american moron.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. Golly, just in time

to invade Iran.

[Eagle_Eye]

18. Doubling the troops in Iraq could leave the door open and

it could get DRAFTy around here.

[applegrove]

19. This comes up again and again. Rumsfield, in the run up to the

planning of the Iraq invasion, took the plan for an invasion of Iraq and reduced and reduced the troops needed for successful invasion. His generals started out with their plan that had 400,000 or 500,000 troops required to oust Saddam and keep the peace. Rumsfield, time and again, asked them to cut the number of troops required because of his brilliant new assumptions. They'd drop the number of troops by 50,000 or so... he'd kick the plan back and berate them for not lowering the troops enough.

He finally got the number of troops in a plan he liked. I think it ended up at 200,000 or so. And off to war they went with Rumsfield's plan.

This keeps coming up and every so often people call for Rumsfield's resignation but Bush always says - I would refuse to accept it.

Neocons always refuse to take ownership of their faulty logic. And it costs lives.

The question of doubling the troops goes to the Iraqi Army and how, when it is finally trained, there will be 400,000 troops in Iraq, just as the generals ordered under their invasion plan for the late 1990s. That means that including Iraqi troops and American ones, there will finally be enough troops in Iraq to keep order. 2 years too late.

So will the US leave or stay? You see the dilemma? Because the war was so faultily executed (ignoring the legality for now) is it smart to remove the American troops as soon as the Iraqis are ready .. only for Iraqis to end up with the cheap defense that they have already experienced for the last 2 years?

This must be what they are discussing. That with 400,000 troops altogether - they finally have enough resources to do the job of securing the peace.

[Coexist]

22. did adding more troops in Vietnam help?

on edit - Gen. Clark said that there are still troops in Europe that can be rotated in - since they are not needed there for the Cold War anymore.

[Misunderestimator]

24. Sure did... helped get the draft started, that is.