UNHINGED
07 December 2006 9:11 am by Taylor Marsh
| Iraq claims two more casualties. |
“They came up with a political thought but then got to tinkering
with tactical ideas that in my view don’t make any sense,” General
McCaffrey said. “This is a recipe for national humiliation.”
Okay, it's “bad” in Iraq.
Mr. Bush came unhinged this morning in his press conference with Blair. It
was a question from a reporter that asked why it took the Iraq Study Group report
for him to get that Iraq is going down hill fast. His answer started off slow
and then wound up winding around to 9/11, which is where Bush always goes when he's in trouble. The man is coming unglued before our eyes,
with the ISG the last straw.
While the Baker-Hamilton committee talks about all the many problems with Mr.
Bush's forieign policy, including the never ending Israeli – Palestinian challenges,
the reality is that ideas don't always transfer on the ground into military
action that will work. At least they did mention that there is a real chance
Iraq will still fail. Someone needs to tell Mr. Bush.
Amidst it all, just imagine how our military feels.
Jack Keane, the retired acting Army chief of staff who served on the group’s
panel of military advisers, described that goal as entirely impractical. “Based
on where we are now we can’t get there,” General Keane said in
an interview, adding that the report’s conclusions say more about “the
absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq.”The experience of American commanders shows the difficulties in rapidly handing
over security responsibilities to Iraq. In June, Gen. George W. Casey Jr.,
the senior American commander in Iraq, developed a plan that called for gradually
drawing down the number of American brigade combat teams by December 2007,
to just 5 or 6 from the 14 combat brigades that were deployed at the time.
In keeping with this approach, American troops in Baghdad began to cut back
on their patrols in the capital, calculating that Iraqi security forces would
pick up the slack.Â
(snip)
Military experts say there are several difficulties with the panel’s
recommendation. First, it underestimates the challenge of building a capable
Iraqi security force. After several years of desultory efforts, the United
States has taken steps to upgrade and better prepare the teams of American
advisers who are assigned to Iraqi units. But training the Iraqi Army is more
than a matter of teaching combat skills. It requires transforming the character
of the force.“The new Iraqi Army will need years to become equal to the challenge
posed by a persistent insurgency and terrorist threat,” Lt. Col. Carl
D. Grunow, a former military adviser, wrote in a recent issue of Military
Review, a journal published by the United States Army.One big problem, Colonel Grunow notes, is that the Iraqi military is not
proficient in counterinsurgency operations or sufficiently sensitive to the
risk of civilian casualties.
As I said yesterday, the Iraq Study Group doesn't just take on Iraq. Baker-Hamilton
decided to take on the world, but Mr. Bush has no intention of embracing the ISG. He's waiting for the Pentagon report, so there's the reality. As for the military aspect, it is either non-existent or
untenable. But the real rub of the ISG is that it's hard to know where to start.
So many careers and reputations have been ravaged by Iraq. Even James Baker,
the canniest of operators, has now met his Waterloo.The report of the Iraq Study Group—which Baker co-chaired with Lee
Hamilton, that other Wise Man-wannabe—was doomed to fall short of expectations.
But who knew it would amount to such an amorphous, equivocal grab bag.Its outline of a new “diplomatic offensive” is so disjointed that
even a willing president would be left puzzled by what precisely to do, and
George W. Bush seems far from willing.So Much for Plan B
The Iraq Study Group chickens out.
We didn't need a laundry list that ranges from Saudi Arabia to Germany and
Japan jumping in. We know the Israeli – Palestinian challenge needs to be solved. But even if Mr. Bush gets that impossible job done what we will still have in Iraq is a civil war spinning out of control. What we needed was a way forward and a definite way out of Iraq, because it is over. I guess not
only Bush needs a wake up call. The bi-partisan committee needed to be told
it wasn't about them or finding common ground. It was about saving our American
honor right now from a civil war that threatens to collapse the Maliki government
and leave a failed state in its wake. But even knowing that reality is staring us in the face, Mr. Bush still puts conditions on Iran and Syria just to talk with them on Iraq.
The Iraq Study Group has completed the final stage. America's foreign policy
is official unhinged.
