The president announced the surge decision Jan. 10, 2007. Five more brigades would go to Baghdad; 4,000 Marines would head to Anbar province.
The next morning, he went to Fort Benning, Ga., to address military personnel and their families. His decision had been opposed by Casey and Abizaid, his military commanders in Iraq. Pace and the Joint Chiefs, his top military advisers, had suggested a smaller increase, if any at all. Schoomaker, the Army chief, had made it clear that the five brigades didn't really exist under the Army's current policy of 12-month rotations. But on this morning, the president delivered his own version of history.
"The commanders on the ground in Iraq, people who I listen to -- by the way, that's what you want your commander-in-chief to do. You don't want decisions being made based upon politics or focus groups or political polls. You want your military decisions being made by military experts. They analyzed the plan, and they said to me and to the Iraqi government: 'This won't work unless we help them. There needs to be a bigger presence.' "
Bush went on, "And so our commanders looked at the plan and said, 'Mr. President, it's not going to work until -- unless we support -- provide more troops.' "
This, remember, is the guy who insisted that he was always "listening to the recommendations of the commanders on the ground."
That's what the man said. That's what John McCain said. Here's a transcript:
Q: If it’s working, senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?
McCAIN: No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine. American casualties and the ability to withdraw. We will be able to withdraw. General Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are. But the key to it is we don't want any more Americans in harms way. And that way they will be safe and serve our country and come home with honor in victory, not in defeat, which is what Senator Obama's proposal would have done.
And I'm proud of them and they're doing a great job and we are succeeding and it's fascinating that Senator Obama still doesn't realize that.
According to Talking Points Memo, the McCain campaign released a statement about the coverage of this quote yesterday. Here it is:
The Obama campaign is embarking on a false attack on John McCain to hide their own candidate's willingness to disregard facts on the ground in pursuit of withdrawal no matter what the costs. John McCain was asked if he had a 'better estimate' for a timeline for withdrawal. As John McCain has always said, that is not as important as conditions on the ground and the recommendations of commanders in the field. Any reasonable person who reads the full transcript would see this and reject the Obama campaign's attempt to manipulate, twist and distort the truth.
Right now I'm thinking that they've got it a wee bit wrong. Look closely at the question McCain was answering and then the answer. First the question:
...do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?
To which he answered:
No, but that’s not too important.
So it isn't really that McCain said it's "not too important" when the troops come home. What's "not too important" is that he doesn't have a better estimate for when they can come home, even though (in his words) the surge is working. I think his latest estimate was about 100 years or something.
It's a tad different - not much different, of course, but a tad (how much is a "tad" anyway? More than an "jot" less than a "pinch" or the other way round?).
But take a look at the rest of it. That's the really confusing part. He's making the case for the troops to remain in Iraq. But then there's this:
But the key to it is we don't want any more Americans in harms way. And that way they will be safe...
Huh? So keeping the troops in Iraq is a way to keep them safe? If he truly doesn't want any more Americans in harms way, then he should be looking for ways to get them out of harms way - not keep them there! But it looks like this general plan is this:
Make things safe for US Troops in Iraq and once they are safe,
Keep them there forever.
All the more curious due to this recent quotation (one his campaign tried - and failed - to explain away as a question of "semantics" and "verb tenses"):
I can tell you that it [the Surge] is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet.--John McCain, Town Hall meeting, May 28, 2008.
As the Washington Post pointed out, there are about 35,000 more troops in Iraq now than from when the surge began, uh, surging. And Mosul was hardly quiet that day. On the very day McCain stuck his foot in his mouth three suicide bombers killed 30. Where?
Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.
Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.
As background:
Petraeus came back to Iraq a year ago to implement a counterinsurgency strategy, backed up by a temporary increase of about 30,000 U.S. troops, intended to reduce violence so Iraqi leaders could pass laws and take other measures to ease the sectarian and political differences that threaten to break the country apart.
So while the Surge HAS reduced the violence, the reason the Surge was instituted has, so far, been a faulure.
Petraeus credited both the mainly Sunni neighborhood patrols known as the Awakening and a cease-fire called by Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr with helping to bring down violence. The Awakening fighters include former insurgents who say they have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a largely homegrown Sunni group that Petraeus said is in communication with al-Qaeda leaders abroad. The United States is now paying 88,000 members of the Awakening $300 a month to take part in the neighborhood patrols.
Ah, the "Awakening." I remember that. The quotation is from Rolling Stone Magazine:
Now, in the midst of the surge, the Bush administration has done an about-face. Having lost the civil war, many Sunnis were suddenly desperate to switch sides — and Gen. David Petraeus was eager to oblige. The U.S. has not only added 30,000 more troops in Iraq — it has essentially bribed the opposition, arming the very Sunni militants who only months ago were waging deadly assaults on American forces. To engineer a fragile peace, the U.S. military has created and backed dozens of new Sunni militias, which now operate beyond the control of Iraq's central government. The Americans call the units by a variety of euphemisms: Iraqi Security Volunteers (ISVs), neighborhood watch groups, Concerned Local Citizens, Critical Infrastructure Security. The militias prefer a simpler and more dramatic name: They call themselves Sahwa, or "the Awakening."
But, of course, pointing out the failure of The Surge to achieve its political end is unfair because life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was very very bad.
After considering that the purpose of The Surge was to give the Iraqi government some time to reach a number of political and administrative goals, we should probably all be asking, now that it's been a year since The Surge was announced, how well or badly they're doing.
Or to put it in a simpler way, have any of the goals been met?
On the one year anniversary of President Bush’s State of the Union address justifying his "New Way Forward" in Iraq, it is clear that the surge has failed to meet its objectives. One year ago, the president pledged that “America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced." Despite the fact that the Iraqi government has only met three of the 18 benchmarks laid out last year, an end to U.S. military and financial commitment is nowhere in sight.
Here are the benchmarks.
Government Benchmarks:
Perform constitutional review. Enact de-Ba’athification reform. Form semi-autonomous regions. Hold provincial elections. Address amnesty. Establish support for Baghdad Security Plan. Ensure minority rights in Iraqi legislature. Keep Iraqi Security Forces free from partisan interference.
Of these, only TWO have been enacted; Establish support for Baghdad Security Plan and Ensure minority rights in Iraqi legislature. De-Ba'athification reform is listed as a partial.
Security Benchmarks:
Disarm militias. Provide military support in Baghdad. Empower Iraqi Security Forces. Ensure impartial law enforcement. Establist support for Baghdad Security Plan by Maliki government. Reduce sectarian violence. Establish neighborhood security in Baghdad. Increase independent Iraqi Security Focres.
Of these only one has been enacted; This is the one we all know by now - Establish neighborhood security in Baghdad. There are three other partials; Provide military support in Baghdad, Empower Iraqi Security Forces and Reduce Sectarian violence.
And so for The Surge - yes there's been a reduction (if only partial) in sectarial violence and yes Baghdad is secure, but what about all that other stuff?
Now that we know that Bush make a surprise visit to Iraq this weekend, it might be a good idea to take a look at some of the stuff the wingnuts in the area definitely won't be talking about.
On the supposed drop in insurgent attacks. Too bad a great deal of the dirty work has already been accomplished. From Newsweek:
When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won.
Seems that the Shiites have been doing that for some time now.
Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.
The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to “protect the population” and “maintain physical influence over” only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.
Hmm, that's about one third, isn't it?
After 4 years they can only "protect the population" in one third of the neighborhoods in Baghdad?
