TIME: What a Surge Really Means (Administration official: "None of this is going to work.")

[DeepModem Mom]

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007
What a Surge Really Means
Can a couple more divisions in Iraq make a difference? Or is Bush's idea too little, too late?
By MICHAEL DUFFY

For years now, George W. Bush has told Americans that he would increase the number of troops in Iraq only if the commanders on the ground asked him to do so. It was not a throwaway line: Bush said it from the very first days of the war, when he and Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld were criticized for going to war with too few troops. He said it right up until last summer, stressing at a news conference in Chicago that Iraq commander General George Casey "will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there." Seasoned military people suspected that the line was a dodge--that the civilians who ran the Pentagon were testing their personal theory that war can be fought on the cheap and the brass simply knew better than to ask for more. In any case, the President repeated the mantra to dismiss any suggestion that the war was going badly. Who, after all, knew better than the generals on the ground?

Now, as the war nears the end of its fourth year and the number of Americans killed has surpassed 3,000, Bush has dropped the generals-know-best line. Sometime next week the President is expected to propose a surge in the number of U.S. forces in Iraq for a period of up to two years. A senior official said reinforcements numbering "about 20,000 troops," and maybe more, could be in place within months. The surge would be achieved by extending the stay of some forces already in Iraq and accelerating the deployment of others.

The irony is that while the generals would have liked more troops in the past, they are cool to the idea of sending more now. That's in part because the politicians and commanders have had trouble agreeing on what the goal of a surge would be. But it is also because they are worried that a surge would further erode the readiness of the U.S.'s already stressed ground forces. And even those who back a surge are under no illusions about what it would mean to the casualty rate. "If you put more American troops on the front line," said a White House official, "you're going to have more casualties."

Coming from Bush, a man known for bold strokes, the surge is a strange half-measure--too large for the political climate at home, too small to crush the insurgency in Iraq and surely three years too late. Bush has waved off a bipartisan rescue mission out of pride, stubbornness or ideology, or some combination of the three. Rather than reversing course, as all the wise elders of the Iraq Study Group advised, the Commander in Chief is betting that more troops will lead the way to what one White House official calls "victory."....

***

A dismayed Administration official who has generally been an optimist about Iraq described the process as chaotic. "None of this," he predicted of the surge and its coming rollout, "is going to work."...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1574148,00.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Oh that is a nice detail: 'surge' = 'two years'.

So what was first floated as a temporary increase in troop strength has predictably morphed into a multi-year escalation of the war. The original proposal is quietly dropped, but the bullshit terminology: 'surge' instead of 'escalation' remains in place. The compliant media of course steadfastly holds to the patently false terminology, terminology they never even challenged to begin with, once again aiding and abetting the continuing war crimes being committed by the cabal in the white house.

[frogcycle]

5. good catch

"a surge in the number of U.S. forces in Iraq for a period of up to two years."

even today pundits were talking about a "brief" surge to enable getting out - this "plan" is going to keep morphing - the madison-avenue assholes running the admin will just keep floating "trial balloons" and postponing his "announcement" until they think they have something that will fly. I don't know if I hate bush or rove more.

yes I do - I hate bush more, because he is the president, but I suspect a large part of his ongoing recalcitrance and apparent cluelessness is because rove plays him in order to achieve rove's perverse aims. what's worse than sociopath? whatever it is, that's rove.

[originalpckelly]

27. I wonder though, if this is actually possible...

where do they plan to get the troops from in the long term? With regular army and nat'l guard, they are already having a problem in getting enough people. Where do they plan to get the other people? I don't see that it's possible to get them without a draft, a massive recruitment effort, or really extending our soldiers to the brink by giving them more time in Iraq.

[Kagemusha]

6. Whoa, good catch. No wonder the generals are talking force breakdown

I'd heard long ago that even maintaining the current level of forces through 2008 was a complete no-go. How are they physically gonna get this done, if this report is at all accurate on this point? I'm sure Washington will be abuzz with people wanting answers to that...

[MADem]

7. The ass-covering theory is interesting...stay the course, and then, blame the successor for the

inevitable failure because the whole thing was a cockup from the git-go:

There is one other scenario to consider: it may be that Bush won't pull out of Iraq as long as he is President. Whether it works or not, a surge of 18 to 24 months would carry Bush to the virtual end of his term. After that, Iraq becomes someone else's problem. Bush's real exit strategy in Iraq may just be to exit the presidency first.

[frogcycle]

8. well, then ...

we know what has to be done.

NOW

[Kagemusha]

9. Actually, that is one of the few things that makes sense about this.

It's one of the only strategies I truly believe would make sense to Bush in a way that he can personally grasp and comprehend.

Edit: But I'm reminded that Bush comes off as a fanatic about this so, would it really enter his thinking? ...Probably not, but it reassures certain WH staffers that Bush must be thinking like this, because it's more sane. That's for their own psychological comfort but probably has little relation to reality.

[MADem]

12. I've always thought he was rolling towards that, that it was, indeed, his "Plan B"

When your ass is against the wall, fanatic or no, and you know it's a mess that cannot be recovered, that your hubris has led you down a garden path to disaster, it would be just like him to hand off the mess to someone else and then point a finger and blame them for messing it up. The old "If only I could have had a third term, it would have been different" or words to that effect. Gotta spin, lie and twist in any desperate effort to salvage something resembling a legacy...it won't work, but he can delude himself. Hell, even Woodward avers he is in a 'State of Denial' after all.

Isn't that what that crowd does? Hand off their shitty messes to someone else, and then blame them for having possession of them at all? Poppy handed Somalia off to Clinton, as I recall....and look at that cluster. Colin Powell bailed, even when asked directly by Clinton to extend to manage that mess....

Like father, like son, only the son is on hubris-laced steroids and/or crack...

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Though that would carry the 'surge' into a new round of Congress spending

wouldn't it? If that's right (I'm unfamiliar with how far ahead spending is fixed, and how much Congress can control where military spending happens), then there'd be a big confrontation with the Democrats at the end of next year, I think. If so, I hope the Congressional politicians are planning their Iraq policy statements with that in mind.

[MADem]

37. Military appropriations happen every year, and sometimes more often

when they do a supplemental (usually due to a contingency, or an "Oooops, we fucked up and didn't budget enough").

The thing is, though, Pelosi has said no NEW deficits--the war deficit is an old one...so they can parse their way around it. They can also demand that the Services do a really tough scrub and find money that way. All you have to do is initiate a vertical cut (where you take out every single aspect of a program, from top to bottom) on some projects or programs and move that cash to the war. Gee, the "Presidential Travel" line item could probably do with a bit of scrubbing..... (I'm being sarcastic, but there's waste a plenty there!).

[bananas]

10. There are more details in this pdf

The pdf is linked from the OP of this thread:
41. "At least 30K Army and Marines per year for the next two years"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2932890&mesg_id=2937457

[Kagemusha]

13. I can't tell... are you sure that this is the same plan as this article refers to?

Thanks! :)

[Bucky]

14. I can recall a couple of pro Administration pundits saying "a few months", not years

It's one thing to be lied to. I think this is worse; I think the Bushies don't know what they're doing at a level we haven't even imagined, just making it up as they go along. Before most people imagined they had delusional plans for Iraq and hidden plans for Iraq's oil. At this point, I'm thinking they're all but sitting on their fat safe tushes and flipping quarters over what decision to fake next or how to change the last decisions they made. Their on-air blabbermouths, not having a real script to follow, then just get to make up whatever they want to sell not the administration's policies (because there aren't any) but just sell a generalized blind loyalty to whatever the trained talking monkey says to do this week.

Bush is acting like a compulsive gambler. He wiggles out of one situation for the short term--the ISG report embarrassment--and then goes back to thinking he's scot free and can go back to betting the milk money in the hopes that the 20k extra will pay off big with the next spin of the wheel. Only it's not 20k dollars he's gambling with. It's twenty thousand people young enough and patriotic enough to believe he gives a damn about what's happening to them.

[NewJeffCT]

25. A few months will turn into...

"The next three to six months are crucial..."

And, that will happen a few times over 2007 and early 2008.

I mean, how many times did Tom Friedman claim that the next 3-6 months are crucial? I think the count was 10 times?

[originalpckelly]

30. Iraq was a mistake, and that's something even more frightening than...

it being intentional. It is the natural conclusion to this cycle of tyranny in American history, as Vietnam and Watergate were to the last cycle.

This is our Afghanistan, this is where the bad parts of tyranny overcome the obviously powerful parts of it, this is where a lack of debate, a real lack of democratic process, get's us into a mess.

Afghanistan marked the end of the Soviets, but not because of the war itself, but because of the political climate it marked in the USSR. It was a side-effect, as this is a side-effect as well.

[librechik]

35. 4 FUs (Friedman Units)

Named for Tom Friedman, NYT columnist, due to his habit of saying "In another 6 months the situation in Iraq will improve" over and over and over again.

[Eric J in MN]

20. That way when the next president finally gets us out of Iraq,

...Bush can say that president lost the war and and not him.

[PA Democrat]

24. Has George Bush EVER in his entire pathetic life EVER cleaned up his

own messes? He has always relied on others to undo the disasters he has created. It's time for an intervention, America.

[Jim Warren]

51. Two years........or

there abouts, you know until bushco inc. thinks they can hand off the total fucking mess to the next administration.

[MADem]

2. During Vietnam it was called an escalation. Or throwing more lives down the crapper.

Whatever it is, it'll work just about the same....

When Admin officials are saying it ain't gonna work, it ain't gonna work. Wouldn't surprise me if that "dismayed official" was Tony Snow. It sounds like something he would say at the gaggle.

[babylonsister]

3. Coming from Duffy, this is hugh!!1!! He has been such a

kiss-ass to this admin, very recently (or my impression of his attitude), this is somewhat startling to read.

[Olney Blue]

4. Enough. The chimp must be stopped.

[butch1227]

21. IMPEACHMENT IS NO LONGER WISHFUL THINKING.... IT'S A MUST

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.....!!!!
PRESIDENT MORON IS BEYOND BELIEF...!!!! HIS STUPIDITY IS WITHOUT EQUAL......!!!! I SAY IT'S TIME TO INVESTIGATE bush, cheney, rummy, et al...., AND IMPEACH THEM AND CONVICT THEM AND JAIL THEM........... FOR THE CRIMES THEY HAVE WILLINGLY PERPETRATED AGAINST THE WORLD, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, AMERICA....!!!! LIARS.... DECEIVERS... EXAGGERATORS...
BULL-THROWING ARTISTS.... WHAT A DISGRACEFUL ADMINISTRATION.....!!!! I LOOK FOR SOMEONE LIKE SENATOR JIM WEBB TO TAKE CARE OF THIS MORON AND HIS CRONIES IN THE NEAR FUTURE....!!! GOD-WILLING, FOR ALL OF OUR SAKES....!!!!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

28. Well since you put it in all caps...

...I'm sure they'll get right on that.

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. Administration official:__Troop escalation__"more of a political decision than a military one".....

Administration official:__Troop escalation__"more of a political decision than a military one".....

Full story at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3041509







How many men and women are we prepared to let Bush sacrifice for what his own official calls a "political decision"?

Who will be the last to die for a decision that is "a political decision, not a military one"?

[tex-wyo-dem]

15. "pride, stubbornness or ideology"

They forgot "ego."

[Bucky]

16. On further reflection... this anonymous administration official is an evil asshole.

He predicts, "None of this is going to work." So does he tell the president this? No.

Does he quit his job in protest? Apparently not.

Does he call a press conference and say, "hey America, your president is sending thousands of more exhausted and underprepared troops into a violent hellhole for the sake of his delusional war 'plan' knowing it's only barely enough of a troop increase to get more people killed, but not complete the vaguely defined mission he made up three years ago to cover Cheney's shameless oil grab."?

No he doesn't do that either. He just shows up for work, notes that the president of the United States is betraying our troops and getting them killed for no reason at all except his own sickening sense of denial, and collects a paycheck and enough of a resume pad to land on some corporate board or five after he leaves office.

The man knows he's helping send kids to their deaths, he's figured out it's hopeless, and he seems to care about it... but he still won't do a damn thing in order to protect his position.

Please don't call this anonymous source a whore. Prostitutes sell fake love for money. He's selling someone else's real blood for a boardroom position. Whore doesn't begin to cover it.

[Felinity]

22. Maybe, maybe not

Many of our highest level generals have resigned in protest, and several said that they would have done so sooner but for their loyalty and concern for the troops under them.

It's possible that this individual is hanging in there, hoping to add some voice of reason, or at least lend some witness for future historical accounts. I hope there are a few moles in this White House.

And let's face it any messenger who is stupid enough to confront * with the cold morning chill of Reality probably won't make any headway. But there is quite a bit of evidence to indicate that "They shoot Messengers, don't they?"

[Imagevision]

17. With no clear mission, escalating the war is another Wag-The-Dog scenario...

[Vinca]

19. He's escalating the troops because there is only one other option:

admit failure. As Fran Townshend said about the capture of Osama, "It's a success that hasn't happened yet."

[PVnRT]

23. Bush hears only the things that reinforce what he already wants to do

This is what happens when CEOs and businessmen run the government.

[RedEarth]

26. kr

[formercia]

29. It doesn't matter if it works or not

the goal is to create chaos in the Middle East in promotion of the Xtian-Zionist agenda(otherwise known as the Crusader agenda).


The now defunct 'Crusader' self-propelled 155mm cannon

[Geek_Girl]

31. More like the Oil Companies Agenda

Keep the place in chaos and you keep the Corporate Oil Interest in control of the flow of Oil coming out of Iraq.

[formercia]

32. All part of the same agenda

sell lots of guns and ammo too. Got to keep Carlyle's dividends within an acceptable return.

[CJCRANE]

48. The pro-Israel agenda is only a small part of it.

You have to remember that our "allies" in the region are the Sunni absolute monarchies and dictatorships. They prefer a weak Iraq (although I think * has f*cked it up beyond what they could've imagined)

[Morgana LaFey]

33. Well, look. At last we have an exit plan:

There is one other scenario to consider: it may be that Bush won't pull out of Iraq as long as he is President. Whether it works or not, a surge of 18 to 24 months would carry Bush to the virtual end of his term. After that, Iraq becomes someone else's problem. Bush's real exit strategy in Iraq may just be to exit the presidency first.

Except no news there. He's promised as much.

[Historic NY]

34. Its really not going to work with a Dry Dock Admiral in charge....

imagine the Army following the Navy.........
<snip>
Admiral William J. Fallon will replace Gen. John Abizaid, US commander in the Middle East, who announced his retirement in December and was expected to leave the post in March. Abizaid was a critic of Bush's efforts to add more troops to Iraq, but the circumstances of his early departure are unclear.
<snip>

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Bush_replaces_top_general_in_Middle_0104.html

[formercia]

36. The 'New and Improved' agenda.

made with real bodies. :sarcasm:

[MADem]

38. Dry dock admiral??? The guy was PACOM, fachrissake, He was a fighter pilot.

He has seen more action since his Vietnam tours than most of us ever have. With the joint requirements nowadays, it should be a seamless transition. My question is why Bill Fallon would WANT to do that job--you gotta wonder if they cornered him and got him to take it before he had a chance to say no.

The "Dry Dock Admiral" is NOT the problem, it's the Commander in CHIEF who's the problem. I feel sorry for Bill. He's got the goods to do the job (he did some credible and appreciated work in Bosnia) but he is up against an impossible situation. That said, I will bet he's confirmed unanimously, or damned near for the post.

[ProudDad]

39. I don't care about his service record

I wonder why * would appoint him. My suspicion is that he's more "flexible", that is, more willing to suck up to *'s policy of escalation than the Generals who know better what a quagmire it is there...

I also heard something to the effect that the navy would be more effective in a first strike against IRAN than the army. Attack Iran anyone???

[MADem]

41. If you bothered to LOOK at his service record, you'd KNOW why he got the job

I have some horrible news for you, he got promotions under CLINTON. He managed Bosnia under CLINTON. He is the penultimate JOINT SERVICE OFFICER. PACOM is not a Navy command--it's joint. He controls about twenty percent of all the forces on active duty from that perch.

Jesus Christ on a bike, some of his strongest supporters are Democrats. He's incredibly sharp, and he thinks things through. But don't let that get in the way. Would you prefer a drooling idiiot in the job?

The only attacking of Iran that would happen will occur if the Iranians foolishly decide to lob a few Hoots at US assets in the Gulf. It would be measured response to take out the lauch sites, and maybe a few stockpiles, but that would be that.

But seriously, you think that Iran is going to do that? All of their cash flow goes IN and out via the Strait of Hormuz. They import forty percent of their gasoline, because they have insufficient refineries that can meet all of their demand. They rely on China and others for cash in exchange for oil. You actually think they'd commit economic suicide by shooting at us and risking cutting off their cash flow?

There will be no "invasion" of Iran. Good grief. We'd need a draft and a two year build-up to make that happen, AND owing to the terrain of the nation, it would be absolute lunacy .

And Bush doesn't have that kind of time.

The purpose of the 'carriers off Iran' show is to assuage our beloveds, the Saudis, who called Cheney to their desert kingdom to rip him a new asshole. They warned him that they would fund the Sunni insurgency if we even THOUGHT about rapproachment with Iran. This business is our way of proving our love to the House of Saud by waving our big stick at the bloviating and ineffectual Persians, nothing more.

[ProudDad]

45. Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect

I guess, I just don't have your slavish love of the military...

[formercia]

46. What we need is a 'Peacetime' military.

Take away most of their toys and cut the Pentagon down to size.

This bullshit about fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them here is a bunch of crap.
The Iraqi insurgency shows what happens when someone invades a country with a well-armed populace.


THE COLD WAR IS OVER!!! GET OVER IT!!!

[ProudDad]

52. Hear hear!!!

[MADem]

50. What a profoundly childish remark. I happen to know the man.

But live in your goofball world, if it pleases you.

[robertpaulsen]

40. K & R!

:kick:

[LuckyX]

42. They better do more than write a

letter of complaint! We are watching them all and we are not going back to sleep.

[Cass]

43. A surge for 2 years? I think Biden is right when he says Bush is just looking

to delay withdrawal until he's out of office, then let the next one elected clean up the mess.

[NastyRiffraff]

44. Bush has said OUTRIGHT that the war will be...

the next president's "problem." Trying to find the exact quote; he said that at least once in the past.

[malaise]

47. Ding Ding

We have a winner. That is all this is about. Who cares who dies - certainly not Bush.

[CJCRANE]

49. Yes

and the neocons have always said that this is a "generational" war.

The constant attrition of troops means nothing to them, they see the media reporting it as the problem.