Former Defense Secretary William Perry, a member of the Iraq Study Group, said Saturday that Iraq could turn into a "quagmire" if the Bush administration fails to change strategy. Could?, It is there and Bush will ignore all good advice from the study group and ensure that it gets much worse!
Referring to the Vietnam War, Perry said: "The term 'quagmire' recalls one of the saddest periods in American history, which we do not want to relive. But I believe that is likely to happen if we 'stay the course' in Iraq." Bush is going to make it much worse than that. He has repeated every single one of the Vietnam mistakes he said. But now Bush is going to add insult to injury and add even more soldiers instead of decreasing them as the so called blue ribbon Iraq study group advises. I heard yesterday that so far 3,500 troops from the 82nd were being sent to Qatar for possible use in Iraq.
Yep, it looks like the chief idiot will wrongly go Big and fail in a big way!
On the military front, there are various ways to "go big," by adding 10,000 to 20,000 troops to the approximately 135,000 U.S. forces in Iraq. Bush has gotten competing advice about how many troops to add including a suggestion of up to 35,000 by McCain and Lieberman as you know and whether to define their mission as temporary or long term and whether to add troops at all.
Some military officers doubt that the results from any increase would be worth the damage to the Army's readiness and I have to agree. Nothing, nothing will prevent the complete breakdown Bush set in motion.
Anyway another element of the "go big" idea is increasing the total size of the military. The chiefs of the Army and Marine Corps want to expand the size of their services, although departing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld opposed it. He cited an estimated cost of $1.2 billion a year for each 10,000 extra troops. The Army also wants the ability to mobilize Guard and Reserve troops more frequently than is now allowed; some in Congress are likely to resist such a change.
First I have to say is Rummy was against it, it is probably the right thing to do but I am innately leery of giving bush more soldiers to abuse and misuse.
Others advocate adding forces and launching an offensive against Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr while increasing industrial and economic aid to civilians. That my friends would be the biggest mistake yet in a plethora of big mistakes.
A competing plan would woo the Sunni elite by guaranteeing them a share of oil revenue and reversing the previous policy of "de-Baathification," which purged ex-members of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led Baathist rule from the top layers of government institutions. This ranks right up there with going after Al Sadr. this all boils down to some pretty ludicrous desperate moves to save Bush's failed Iraq plan.
Perry reiterated the recommendations of last week's report from the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton.
But Bush probably will reject the Iraq Study Group's recommendation to pull back most combat forces by early 2008. Proposals before him include integrating or embedding more U.S. advisers in Iraqi Army units to provide guidance on tactics and leadership. The long-term goal would be a shift away from a primarily combat role, which some advisers say consigns U.S. forces to a defensive posture as they await the next attack by insurgents. I see this as the only thing Bush will actually do as the study group advised. http://www.mercurynews.com/...
"We need to accelerate the training of Iraqi army and police forces," Perry said. "We need to begin to pull out U.S. combat brigades, with the goal of having all except rapid-reaction forces out by first quarter of 2008. ... We need to push friendly regional powers to assist. We need to put pressure on unfriendly regional powers to stop arming militias and fomenting violence. And finally, we need to invigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process." That is a handful of worthless and useless advice, I still can't understand how the Israeli Palestinian conflict is going to change anything in Iraq.
President Bush has been meeting over the last week with current and former military leaders -- as well as advisers from other parts of the government so he could appear like he was concerned about what they had to say before he ignored it and does what he wants.
The Iraq Study Group report was critical of just about every aspect of the administration's war policies. But when all is said and done that will not deter him and he will as usual ignore all good advice and do what he wants which is always the wrong thing!
Perry said he believed the report "will frame the debate in our country this coming year. And it will demonstrate that it is possible, even in the poisonous political climate that now exists, to address important national problems in a truly bipartisan manner." Pipe dreams, forget it! http://www.cnn.com/...
It will frame the debate but it does not matter. Regardless of which of the options he chooses, nothing will change the breakdown he set in motion when he diverted from the so called war on terror in Afghanistan to destabilize the middle east by attacking Iraq to start his new middle east order. Nothing can stop what is happening in Iraq and it will spread throughout the entire middle east.
James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com
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