Even When Bush Listens He Doesn't Listen
His advisors must think he has dropped their call. They advise and he ignores.
While listening to George W. Bush’s speech last week, I was trying to figure out who it was that devised the plan that he has adopted. It didn’t sound like the plan from the Pentagon or the Iraq Study Group (ISG). In fact, it sounded more like "stay the course" plus 21,500 troops.
But the Guardian published a story that said he was listening to "retired army vice-chief of staff, General Jack Keane, and four other outside advisers" who came to speak with him before Christmas. One of the "four other" advisers was "neoconservative scholar, Fredrick Kagan" who is a "resident scholar" with The American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Kagan in particular has been calling for more troops in Iraq for months. Keane and Kagan (K&K) co-wrote an editorial in the WP last month describing their plan.
Their Plan, "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success In Iraq", dismisses the key recommendations of the Iraq Study as being recipes for failure, particularly their recommendations regarding engaging Syria and Iran and focusing more on increasing training of Iraqi troops.
They argue that Syria and Iran can only encourage the violence, but cannot stop it. And that training will take too long and will take troops out of neighborhoods to use them as trainers which in turn will result in increased violence in those neighborhoods. (A presentation version of their Plan is also available.
K&K’s Plan basically advocates ignoring a political solution and the training and hand-off of responsibility to Iraqi troops. Instead their plan is focused on security. On the AEI website, they call for a "surge of seven Army brigades and Marine regiments."
Apparently a brigade consists of 1,500 to 3,200 troops. So seven of them would be 10,500 to 22,400. They advocate the "clear and hold" method of securing Baghdad and then providing reconstruction funds.
Now that sounds a lot like what Bush proposed last week.
But in their Op/Ed piece in the WP last month, K&K claimed that securing Baghdad
. . .is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.
So, right out of the gate Bush is once again trying to cut corners. If these guys are the experts (which I don’t necessarily accept since they are some of the guys that got us into this mess in the first place), then why is Bush not sending 30,000 troops?
Also, he isn’t sending all 21,500 into Baghdad. 4000 of them are going into the Anbar Province. That means he is only sending 17,500 into Baghdad. That is about 42% LESS than his "experts" have told him he needs to get the job done.
K&K also says that securing Baghdad is a pre-condition to success.
The key to the success is to change the military mission -- instead of preparing for transition to Iraqi control, that mission should be to bring security to the Iraqi population. Surges aimed at accelerating the training of Iraqi forces will fail, because rising sectarian violence will destroy Iraq before the new forces can bring it under control.
But in his speech, Bush said:
We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped army, and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq.
This is directly contrary to K&K’s statement that "Surges aimed at accelerating the training of Iraqi forces will fail".
Perhaps Bush is sending some of the additional troops to train and some to "clear and hold", but to start he is sending 1/3 less troops than K&K say are necessary. So splintering this force into trainers will reduce the number of "clear and holders", and according to K&K the plan will fail without at least 30,000 troops.
The size of the surge matters as much as the length. Baghdad is a large city. Any sound military plan will break the problem of bringing security to the Iraqi capital into manageable parts. But there remains a minimum level of force necessary to make adequate progress in a reasonable time.
They close their editorial stating:
The United States faces a dire situation in Iraq because of a history of half-measures. . . . .The only "surge" option that makes sense is both long and large.
How can this surge possibly succeed when Bush is ignoring his "experts" advice and just arbitrarily picking the parts of the "plan" that he wants to implement?
Not to mention that the plan is very dependent on the cooperation of the Iraqis. The London Times is reporting that is not very likely. The U.S. wants to start out in some mixed Sunni-Shi’ite neighborhoods and then move towards Sadr City.
But the London Times reports that
An aide to Maliki said the push would begin in Sunni neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the capital such as Salman Pak and Abu Ghraib — the areas "sending the car bombs into Baghdad" — and, if not, the prime minister "would not be very enthusiastic".
Maliki may just not be on Bush’s team. Another article in the London Times last weekhighlighted some of the activities that Maliki has undertaken, or failed to undertake, in the last 6 months which are directly contrary to what Bush directed, and instead are intended to favor the Shi’ites.
• Maliki Government met with high ranking Iranian officials in Baghdad
• Maliki ignored U.S. requests to slow down on executing Saddam
• Ordered US to lift roadblocks they had set down in November (to help find a missing soldier)
• Last October, Maliki denied that he had agreed to Bush’s announced timetable
• Maliki disavowed the October raid in Sadr City
• Maliki has overruled US directions to Iraqi troops to crack down on Shi’ite militias
Reading through the K&K presentation, it strikes me that their arguments for staying in Iraq are moot.
K&K argue:
Failure in Iraq will likely lead to:
– Widespread regional conflict
– Humanitarian catastrophe
– Terrorist sanctuaries
– Further radicalization of the Muslim World
– Loss of American credibility globally
– Damage to the morale of the U.S. military
Haven’t we already suffered those results? How much worse could it really get?