Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

IRAQ: Going – Going – Gone

The British are leaving.

I could just stop with that sentence, because it's not only the lede but signifies
that the bottom just dropped out of George W. Bush's “stay the course”
fantasy. It also represents the final, complete and total
collapse of Tony Blair's hope of salvaging his reputation. But with the British
leaving Iraq, Bush faces an insurmountable reality that the change of course being hinted
at by General Pace yesterday is not only going to be put on faster footing,
but will most certainly come quickly after the election.

The stark reality is that Republicans have so totally screwed up the Iraq war and its aftermath that there is absolutely nothing between them and total chaos in Iraq — God help us if the Maliki government collapses – especially now that the Brits are bye-bye.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, dropped a political bombshell last night by saying that Britain must withdraw from Iraq “soon” or risk serious consequences for Iraqi and British society. In a blistering attack on Tony Blair's foreign policy, Gen Dannatt said the continuing military presence in Iraq was jeopardising British security and interests around the world. “I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them,” he said in comments that met with admiration from anti-war campaigners and disbelief in some parts of Westminster. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Gen Dannatt, who became chief of the general staff in August, said we should “get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems”. Army chief: British troops must pull out of Iraq soon

Unfortunately, as CNN reported yesterday, the partition idea has been shot
down by the Sunnis who want no part of it. As Senator Kerry said the other day in our converation, the Iraqis have got to want it for it to work. They don't so it won't. Sunnis see their power not only kaput,
but with a partition face the prospect of no oil sharing opportunity, because it's not
like Maliki wants to work with them and make nice.

But the unprecedented public airing of the comments by General Dannatt raised
the hackles of fellow officers, because the message he sends scares the crap
out of the British military. It's not unlike what our own generals faced when finally forced to go public because Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney wouldn't
listen to their own war horses. The message it's seen to send to the front is
no doubt going to reinforce the failures the U.S. and Britain have made in the
post-war battle for Iraq.

Doug Henderson, a former minister for the armed forces and ally of Gordon Brown, questioned why the general had made his thoughts public. “One can only assume that Sir Richard has made his views known privately and that they've been ignored,” he told BBC2's Newsnight programme. He said soldiers expected to have the support of the chief of the general staff, adding: “The soldiers on the frontline must be wondering why they are there now.” (source)

You don't have to be a genius to get the message.

Our soldiers have been asking the same thing for months, as they die, become
wounded and permanently maimed, getting logged as just another statistic.

The preemptive invasion of Iraq was an abysmally bad idea (Clinton never suggested it), made worse by the fact that Rumsfeld wanted
to handle everything, while Cheney micro managed State out of the picture. Where it leaves our military has not begun to be calculated. It
didn't help that Bush's engagement was really as cheerleader, telling people
like Jay Garner to “kick ass,” while offering no questions or help
whatsoever. (quote source: “State of Denial,” by Bob Woodward)

Gilliard
has more, as does Joe
Gandelman.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that you don't need to be an inhuman monster to cause an inhuman amount of death, destruction and suffering. You don't even need evil — ignorance and arrogance and incompetence can manage the job quite nicely. But, as I've said before, it does requires a rare combination of those qualities to take a situation like Saddam's Iraq and make it worse. The numbers may be (and will be) debated, but at this point they strongly suggest that Shrub and company have managed to do just that — or will, in the fullness of time. Catching Up With Saddam – Billmon

George, Don and Dick (but let's not forget Condi) have managed the impossible: pass Saddam in carnage, destruction
and mayhem, with the collapse and respect of the United States reputation adding more injury to the incalculable losses already incurred. Incompetence doesn't even begin to cover it.