What does the troop 'surge' mean and who is pushing it?

[TayTay]

There is an article in today's WaPo on what the troop 'surge' in Iraq means. The article spells out that the 'surge' is meant to last at least 18 months and that it is intended as part of a greater effort to go after militant groups like that Al-Mahdi army in Baghdad and so forth.

This is the WaPo article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122600773_pf.html

The Right Type of 'Surge'
Any Troop Increase Must Be Large and Lasting

By Jack Keane and Frederick W. Kagan
Wednesday, December 27, 2006; A19

Reports on the Bush administration's efforts to craft a new strategy in Iraq often use the term "surge" but rarely define it. Estimates of the number of troops to be added in Baghdad range from fewer than 10,000 to more than 30,000. Some "surges" would last a few months, others a few years.

We need to cut through the confusion. Bringing security to Baghdad -- the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconciliation and economic development -- is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.

The key to the success is to change the military mission -- instead of preparing for transition to Iraqi control, that mission should be to bring security to the Iraqi population. Surges aimed at accelerating the training of Iraqi forces will fail, because rising sectarian violence will destroy Iraq before the new forces can bring it under control.

Any military strategy must of course be accompanied by a range of diplomatic, political, economic and reconciliation initiatives, but those alone will not contain the violence either. Success in Iraq today requires a well-thought-out military operation aimed at bringing security to the people of Baghdad as quickly as possible -- a traditional counterinsurgency mission.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122600773_pf.html

Larry Johnson had a link on his web site to a PowerPoint presentation that detailed what the 'Go Big' proponents wanted in a 'surge.' This is some eye-opening reading and the points raised should be the focus of a lot of talk in DC in January in all the Committees that will be holding hearings on Iraq, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122600773_pf.html

I draw your attention to slide #48, where the designers of this war escalation ask themselves if this will mean a bump in the number of US casualties. Here is there answer:

More Casualties?

•Yes

•Short-term increase in casualties is not a sign of failure

•As troops actively secure the population the enemy will surge its attacks on coalition troops and Iraqi civilians

•Long term casualties over a nine month period will decrease as the population is secured

As of Dec 13, 2006

[babylonsister]

1. Frightening. And increase in casualties is not a sign of failure, as

long as the dead are not their sons or daughters.
Found this nugget on Kagan this a.m., from here:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_john_car_061226_who_is_shaping_white.htm

December 26, 2006 at 20:01:33

Who Is Shaping White House and Pentagon Thinking on the Next Steps In Iraq and Iran?

snip//

A much lesser known policy influencer might be Professor Frederick Kagan. Kagan is a widely published military historian who served as a professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1995 until 2005. This assignment put him into close contact with many of the "thinkers" of the United States Army, such as General Barry McCafferty, now himself a professor at West Point.

At West Point Kagan participated in dozens of panel discussions, strategy development sessions and war games. He is currently at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is the author of AEI's most recent "surge plan" would put four additional Army brigades into Baghdad and two additional Marine regimental combat teams into Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, in an effort to curtail Iraqi violence.

snip//

There's more on Kagan; seems he's one of the few * can count on to say what * wants to hear. And involved with the AEI; quelle surprise!

[wisteria]

2. This is a ridiculous piece. It sounds like we should be planning on

a military strong hold, US occupation of Iraq with our military controlling everything for at least a year and a half. Forget about the Iraqi's leading or taking charge of anything.The time for additional troops was when the war began, not now. It states as "fact" (when actually it can not be proven) what Bush claims on a regular basis, that we can't set a timetable because the insurgency will wait us out then attack and take over Iraq once we are gone. It ignores or fails to mention that most of the violence now is between Sunni and Shia fighting each other and it doesn't even address the real fact, that more US soldiers will bring in more insurgents willing to fight us.
This sounds like the propaganda PR campaign has begun for the "surge".

[TayTay]

3. Agree with you and with Bablylonsista

Larry Johnson points out the real flaw in this as well. This plan says that the US will attempt to defeat and co-opt the Al-Mahdi army. This will severely tick off the Shia. The US re-supplies it's army through Shia controlled lands. We could find ourselves in the position of not being able to get food, supplies, ammunition, re-inforcements, etc to our troops in Baghdad and the eastern part of Iraq.

We would have 100,000+ hostages in Iraq if this goes through with no real way of getting them out without massive, massive bloodshed. This is not doubling-down, it is an all-or-nothing gamble and we are playing with people's lives here.

The entire Democratic Party has to come down against this. Damn that Lieberman win is gonna hust us in this.

[wisteria]

4. Maybe a strong, in their right mind repub, will see the folly in this

and work with us. Yeah, (I know, the chances of that are 1 in a trillion).
Lieberman IMO, is just being a jerk about all of this now. He is going to do nothing but yank the Dem's strings and have them come kissing up to him.
I can't believe I used to have some respect for this man.

[TayTay]

5. 'Surging' the troops has consequences.

Reservist Due for Iraq Is Killed in Standoff With Police

By Megan Greenwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 27, 2006; B02

Army Reservist James E. Dean had already served 18 months in Afghanistan when he was notified three weeks ago that he would be deployed to Iraq later this month. The prospect of returning to war sent the St. Mary's County resident into a spiral of depression, a neighbor said.

Despondent about his orders, Dean barricaded himself inside his father's home with several weapons on Christmas, threatening to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed yesterday by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, police said.

Wanda Matthews, who lives next door to Dean's father and said she thought of the younger man as a son, described him as a "very good boy."

"His dad told me that he didn't want to go to war," Matthews said. "He had already been out there and didn't want to go again."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122601033_pf.html

Suicide by Cop. Dear Lord, how many of these will we have when people, like this kid in this story, realize that they are being conscripted back into Iraq for another 15-18 months.

[ProSense]

6. Thanks for pulling all this information together. Kagan is a lunatic!

Final Fantasy
Fred Kagan's disastrous plan for "victory" in Iraq.
By Spencer Ackerman
Web Exclusive: 12.15.06

Posted here.

[wisteria]

8. I think we might be seeing a lot of deserters, if they realize the length of deployment.

All of this makes me nervous. I think of things like major mental health issues, violence associated with vets at home and in Iraq and Afghanistan and the draft being reinstated.

[europegirl4jfk]

7. I read this Power Point presentation page by page

and already posted a direct link here last week.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/200612141_choosingvictory6.pdf

It scared the hell out of me and once again it screams "incompetence" all over the place. Did you see this?

Enemy Responses
Phase III: Clear
Most Dangerous:
Radicalized groups converge violently upon Coalition and Iraqi forces (the "Tet Offensive"). All mixed neighborhoods not secured with robust Coalition presence become sites of mass casualty bombings and murder. Iraqi Security forces are corrupt and comply. Spectacular attacks occur in other Iraqi cities. Enemy assassinates high profile political figures or destroys symbolic religious sites.

We already have all of this on a low scale today. If they send in more troops, attack the Shiite militias and the Sunni insurgents, the above described scenario will happen for sure. And they really think they can counter this?? Delusional!! It will only lead to more bloodshed, more destruction and more hatred. As I said last week, if the Bush admin adopts this plan, there will be hundreds if not thousands of more American soldiers dying, and certainly tens or hundreds of thousands more Iraqis.


Another great article about Kagan's surge plan is "Stalingrad on the Tigris?". That's were I found the PP presentation first:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2006/12/stalingrad_on_t.html

[TayTay]

9. I could not agree more: this is insane

As somebody 'wicked smaht' inferred in the pages of the WaPo over the weekend. I am right there with you europegirl4jfk.

I kept remembering what Sen. Kerry said back in April when he was quoted Burke: "A conscientious man would be careful how he dealt in blood." I just don't think anyone in the Bush Admin is either conscientious or careful. Neither are any of the necon war boosters.

[whometense]

10. Just read this piece by Sidney Blumenthal

at Salon: http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/12/20/bush_war/index.html
Worth a look.

Behind Bush's "new way forward"

A battered group of neocons delivered the president his latest war plan, letting him reject the grave warnings of the Iraq Study Group and deny that we're losing the war.

By Sidney Blumenthal

...on Dec. 11, Bush met at the White House with Jack Keane, from the latest neocon Team B, and four other critics of the ISG. But even before, on Dec. 8, in a meeting with senators, he compared himself to an embattled Harry Truman, unpopular as he forged the early policies of the Cold War. When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., offered that Truman had created the NATO alliance, worked through the U.N. and conducted diplomacy with enemies, and that Bush could follow his example by endorsing the recommendations of the ISG, Bush rejected Durbin's fine-tuning of the historical analogy and replied that he was "the commander in chief."

The opening section of the ISG report is a lengthy analysis of the dire situation in Iraq. But Bush has frantically brushed that analysis away just as he has rejected every objective assessment that had reached him before. He has assimilated no analysis whatsoever of what's gone wrong. For him, there's no past, especially his own. There's only the present. The war is detached from strategic purposes, the history of Iraq and the region, and political and social dynamics, and instead is grasped as a test of character. Ultimately, what's at stake is his willpower.

Repudiated in the midterm elections, Bush has elevated himself above politics, and repeatedly says, "I am the commander in chief." With the crash of Rove's game plan for using his presidency as an instrument to leverage a permanent Republican majority, Bush is abandoning the role of political leader. He can't disengage militarily from Iraq because that would abolish his identity as a military leader, his default identity and now his only one.

Unlike the political leader, the commander in chief doesn't require persuasion; he rules through orders, deference and the obedience of those beneath him. By discarding the ISG report, Bush has rejected doubt, introspection, ambivalence and responsibility. By embracing the AEI manifesto, he asserts the warrior virtues of will, perseverance and resolve. The contest in Iraq is a struggle between will and doubt. Every day his defiance proves his superiority over lesser mortals. Even the Joint Chiefs have betrayed the martial virtues that he presumes to embody. He views those lacking his will with rising disdain. The more he stands up against those who tell him to change, the more virtuous he becomes. His ability to realize those qualities surpasses anyone else's and passes the character test...

[rox63]

11. We're being ruled by f%&$ing lunatics... n/t

[whometense]

12. Ah yes.

It is decidedly so. Fools and knaves.