FLASHBACK: One Year Ago, Gen. Casey Told Bush ‘Less Is Better,’ Pushed Reducing Troops In Iraq

[ProSense]

FLASHBACK: One Year Ago, Gen. Casey Told Bush ‘Less Is Better,’ Pushed Reducing Troops In Iraq

wirq14.jpg Today, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that top American commanders — including Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. — have “decided to recommend a ’surge’ of fresh American combat forces” in Iraq.

But exactly one year ago, Casey rejected a troop increase in Iraq and recommended to President Bush that the number of U.S. forces should actually drop:

As I’ve said before this is not a conventional war, and in this type of war that we’re fighting, more is not necessarily better. In fact, in Iraq, less coalition at this point in time, is better. Less is better because it doesn’t feed the notion of occupation, it doesn’t work the culture of dependency, it doesn’t lengthen the time for Iraqi forces to be self-reliant, and it doesn’t expose coalition forces to risk when there are Iraqi forces who are capable of standing up and doing it.

Casey has not explained the reason for his sudden turnaround and how an increase in troops in 2007 won’t now “feed the notion of occupation” or increase “the culture of dependency.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff are unanimously opposed to Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and many military officials believe that Bush has tried to bribe them into supporting his escalation plan by offering a tradeoff of increasing the size of the military.

Question for General Case: What has changed on the ground since a year ago, August 2006, November or two days ago to justify a surge?

By the numbers Iraq is becoming more dangerous, a civil war is raging there, the cost in lives and dollars climbing rapidly:

237: Number of Bush administration lies (through Jan. 22, 2004) recorded in Iraq on the Record database.

15,000: Number of U.S. troops involved in Operation Forward Together, launched in August 2006.

15,000 to 30,000: Number or troops Bush claims needed to stabilize Iraq.

400,000: Number of troops predicted (in 1999) would be needed for an invasion of Iraq

192,000, 147,000 U.S. Troop levels for March 2003 invasion and in September 2006

$1.2 billion: Cost to increase the Army by 10,000 soldiers.

$2 billion: Weekly cost of Iraq war.

$4 billion: Annual cost of corruption in Iraq.

360,241:Number of DoD weapons with unregistered serial numbers in Iraq

231,534: Estimated number of Iraqis displaced Feb - Oct 2006

22: Number of U.S. soldiers who committed suicide in Iraq in 2005.

959: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3021544&mesg_id=3021544">Average number of attacks in Iraq on U.S.-led forces, local security personnel and civilians.

25, 10 and 15: Number of Iraqi police killed each day; U.S. budgeted for 10 killed and 15 wounded.

714: Number of Iraqis killed in sectarian violence in a one-week period in November.

150,000: Official report of Iraqis killed by insurgents.

650,000: Estimated number of Iraqis cilivians killed in the war.

2006: Bloodiest year for U.S. troops, 812 killed between Dec. 15, 2005 and Dec. 22, 2006.

2,964: U.S. troops fatalities reported as of Dec. 22

46,880: Number of troops wounded in Iraq as of Dec. 22

1,000: Number of soldiers who signed petition to calling for withdrawal from Iraq.

The answer is not more troops, it's more sanity:

THE CASE FOR FLIP-FLOPPING

When Resolve Turns Reckless

By John F. Kerry
Sunday, December 24, 2006; Page B01

There's something much worse than being accused of "flip-flopping": refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop.

I say this to President Bush as someone who learned the hard way how embracing the world's complexity can be twisted into a crude political shorthand. Barbed words can make for great politics. But with U.S. troops in Iraq in the middle of an escalating civil war, this is no time for politics. Refusing to change course for fear of the political fallout is not only dangerous -- it is immoral.

Snip...

We have already tried a trimmed-down version of the McCain plan of indefinitely increasing troop levels. We sent 15,000 more troops to Baghdad last summer, and today the escalating civil war is even worse. You could put 100,000 more troops in tomorrow and you're only going to add to the number of casualties until Iraqis sit down together at a bargaining table and compromise. The barrel of a gun can't answer the question of how you force Iraqi nationalism to trump sectarian loyalty.

The only hope for stability lies in pushing Iraqis to forge a sustainable political agreement on federalism, distributing oil revenues and neutralizing sectarian militias. And that will happen only if we set a deadline to redeploy our troops.

Last May, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad gave the new Iraqi government six months to make the necessary political compromises. But a deadline with no teeth is only lip service. How many times do we have to see that Iraqi politicians respond only to firm, specific deadlines -- a deadline to transfer authority, deadlines to hold two elections and a referendum, and a deadline to form a government -- before we understand that it's time to make it clear that we are leaving and that we will not sacrifice American lives for the sake of squabbling Iraqi politicians?

more...

[rodeodance]

1. Casey must have approved of the Surge last August?? (did not work then

so why would he think it would work now??)

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Remember John Abizaid quit all of a sudden

dime on the dollar he was sacked and everybody else is falling into line