Reality is breaking out all over:
President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.
The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.
In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan.
This left the president and his advisers constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground.
“We could not clear and hold,” Stephen J. Hadley, the president’s national security adviser, acknowledged in a recent interview, in a frank admission of how American strategy had crumbled. “Iraqi forces were not able to hold neighborhoods, and the effort to build did not show up. The sectarian violence continued to mount, so we did not make the progress on security we had hoped. We did not bring the moderate Sunnis off the fence, as we had hoped. The Shia lost patience, and began to see the militias as their protectors.”
I guess the one positive aspect of this is that it appears that the President and his minions are now being forced to deal with reality. The depressing aspects are legion, however. First and foremost, this was predicted to happen by many, and their voices were pushed aside (by yours truly, included). Second, it was obvious this was happening several years ago, and rather than embrace the facts, this administration and her supporters chose to pretend that all was well, and that it was just the media and the damned lefties who wanted Bush to fail, and were exagerating the situation (cue the painted schools stories and letters from soldiers featured at the Free Republic stating we are winning). Third, much of the existing problems were made worse by a series of missteps, including Abu Gharaib and the recent rushed execution of Hussein.
I don’t know if ackowledging the sad facts earlier would have helped the situation- I am of the opinion now that there is little that can be done than to sit back and watch as events unfold. However, recognizing the problems earlier might have, at the very least, stopped us from continuing to make the situation worse. It also would have been nice if we could have had a domestic discussion about what to do in Iraq that consited of more than catcalls about the liberals wanting the terrorists to win.
As to where we go now, I have no clue. It seems like things are getting worse by the day, despite the fact that we have turned yet ‘another corner’ with the execution of Hussein. I am hard pressed to come up with anything other than a gradual withdrawal from the region. I simply do not know what can be done.
p.lukasiak
I don’t know if ackowledging the sad facts earlier would have helped the situation
acknowledging it before November 2004 would have made a huge difference — with someone other than Bush in the White House, the entire international community would have had their faith restored in America, and done what it could to resolve the Iraq situation as peacefully as possible.
ThymeZone
Twice. Once in late 2005 with a “plan for victory” and then again in early 2006 with yet another “plan for victory.”
As luck would have it, neither was an actual plan and neither described an actual victory. It was just all a lot of hot air coming out of the
assmouth of GWB.John, another great post, I am reduced to abject fandom out here.
Eural
Actually I’m glad Bush won in ’04 – it was pointed out time and again (as John mentioned above) by numerous authorities what the end result of this mess was going to be. Bush got to make his bed and lie (?) in it along with all the formally respectable Republicans who suddenly lost their balls when they were no longer investigating the president’s pet’s fan club. Had Kerry (or any other Dem) won all we would be hearing today is how the “Left” demolished the great success of Iraq that conservatives had worked so hard to create.
At this point the overwhelming weight of this cluster-f*** gets to sit squarely on this administration and this generation of Republicans (especially if they now go along with an escalation in force this summer). Not that they won’t continue to try to blame the Democrats – but I think most Americans have really gotten tired of that schtick.
Mike
I agree Eural. If Kerry had won, it would have allowed the Rethuglican leadership to shift the blame. Now we will hang the blame around Bush’s neck like a stinking albatross.
As far as what to do, I think the answer is obvious. We have to pull out. No more people should die on the altar of Bush’s pride and arrogance. As it is, even if we started to pull out today, many more people would die on the way out, but we have to start. We can do nothing further to prevent the situation from getting worse, and the arguments are mounting everyday that we are making it get worse faster. So let’s declare victory, Saddam is dead, yeah, yeah, yeah, and get the fuck out.
Jake
And not lying about WMD in Iraq…well gosh, that would have averted this stellar example of how to break the greatest military in the world; kill thousands of people for no reason; divide a nation (two if you count the name-calling that went on in the U.S.); demolish international opinion of a once respected country all while utterly failing to catch the bastard responsible for Sept. 11th.
So it is nice in a way to see some admission that “mistakes were made,” but I’m still waiting for the confession that counts. It won’t bring the dead back to life. The maimed won’t magically regrow arms, legs, eyes, minds, but it will be a little bit of justice for people (soldiers and civilians) harmed by the reckless villians currently squatting in the White House.
Zifnab
Meh. If ’06 had happened in ’04, we’d have two years less of shitty legislation, two years less of incompetent leadership, and we’d be enjoying two years without Bush/Cheney at the helm. Sure Rush and Co would have been yapping their dumb asses off, but I can’t imagine they’d have said anything particularly profound that would have reinvigorated the conservative base.
There’s going to be a “If only…” Iraq base just like there’s a “If only…” Vietnam base. It was inevitable, the day the first boots hit Iraqi soil. But as Bush loves to say, history will be the judge. And I can’t imagine history judging Kerry more harshly than it judged Clinton after defeating Bush 41.
The Heretik
Rhetoric and reality are two parallel lines that never will converge. No matter. Iraq is headed in one direction no matter what The Decider next decides to anounce as a plan for a strategy or whatever for a mission that was already accomplished. But wasn’t. Fools accept such wisdom, only pausing to accept credit for being the only ones who can handle such debacles.
Tsulagi
Wow, you used the w-word. And I’m not referring to the Retard in Chief. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in one of your posts. I have a feeling it was hard to do so.
“W” as in withdrawal of forces. In my past comments on this site mildly criticizing the administration’s acumen in handling Iraq, I’ve never actually said “withdraw.” Implied it maybe, but never said it. It just goes completely against the grain.
I think that is why some otherwise credible voices are calling for one more shot. They just can’t bring themselves to say withdraw our forces.
SeesThroughIt
I’m quoting this entire paragraph because it is so completely spot-on from top to bottom. It’s kind of depressing that it’s so spot-on–imagine just for a moment that we had competent leadership during this whole thing; imagine just for a moment that the people calling the shots didn’t get damn near everything wrong about Iraq and then defend their wrongness by claiming they’re right and you’ll see that things didn’t have to turn out this way.
Exactly–such rhetoric shows that these people are utterly unserious about actually doing good in Iraq, preferring to be deadly serious about wringing political benefit from the war. People with priorities like that have little to nothing of value to contribute to a discussion about Iraq. All those terrorist-loving lefties the wingnuts shut out of the Iraq discussion from the beginning? They turned out to be right. These same wingnuts, meanwhile, have been reduced to blunt denial of reality–“Saddam did so have WMDs! Iraq is a magnificent success!”
attaturk
The answer is really rather simple and simplistic.
Every decision that Bush has made has turned out to be incorrect in Iraq.
So let’s let him give his speech next week.
And then resolve to do the EXACT OPPOSITE!
Mike
Well, in all fairness, these people (Cheney, Rummy, Perle, Wolfie, et al.) did still have the receipts for those WMD’s they sold Saddam in the 80’s.
LITBMueller
No way, John. This Administration has NEVER dealt with reality. They have consistenly sought to impose their OWN reality on the facts. Consider THIS little nugget from the same Times artice:
See, those who wish to deal with reality are pushed aside. Anything that does not meet the Administration’s fantasy is silenced. They’re an empire now, to borrow a phrase; history’s actors. And we will all just be studying and posting blog comments on what they do.
But, the more interesting question will not be “how MANY troops,” but, “what is Congress’s reaction.” I suspect, for all the bluster and promises, Congress will bow to the President’s will, for fear of being declared “defeatists.”
dreggas
About the only thing this administration is capable of “clearing and holding” is brush on Shrub’s Ranch, of course since he always seems to be clearing it when he’s down there I bet he’s losing his war on plant life too (then again maybe global warming is his secret weapon in the war on terra).
Anyway, is it really surprising that this guy is going to push for more troops? I mean really this is no longer about Hussein, he’s dead. Now it’s about asshole’s ego and his dream for a “legacy” just like with the polar bear he needs to face facts the damage has been done and his legacy, much like what will happen to the polar bear, is extinct.
Dave
Well that’s fine and dandy, except people are loosing their lives. Americans are dying. Political gamesmanship should be kept to issues where death isn’t a part of the calculus.
craigie
Will Bush be publishing his list of stock picks for 2007? Because goddamn there’s a lot of money to be made by shorting every last one of them.
cleek
maybe the next time we come to a corner, we should turn in the other direction. we’re just circling the same block, now.
Jonathan
Hi everyone:
In my next couple of posts I’m going to re post a couple of letters that I have recently written in the Salon letters section.
I would really appreciate any feedback, positive or negative, that you good folks here can give me.
Since I started lurking here I’ve come to respect and enjoy the high level of discourse (and the jokes too). I even find Darrell entertaining and sometimes educational, it is necessary to have one’s biases and premises challenged if one truly wishes to learn and Darrell seems to be a good foil for examining leftist dogma.
Anyway, on to the posts.
I don’t post a great deal because I find that often what I wish to say has already been said by someone else. That’s great as far as I’m concerned. To me, reading and learning are my greatest joys and I have learned quite a bit here.
Jonathan
Bush’s Crime
There were 660,000 coalition troops in the Gulf War, just to kick Saddam out of Kuwait. This was a largely kinetic combat operation, the type of warfare for which the US armed forces are trained and equipped. In contrast the occupation of Iraq is a counterinsurgency or COIN operation, a far more delicate and difficult task that more resembles police work than kinetic combat and requires a far higher troop to population ratio than does kinetic combat. We only have 140,000 troops in Iraq at the moment and adding even 30,000 more will bring the total to just 170,000, a pathetically low number for a COIN operation. COIN doctrine calls for a 20/1000 ratio: twenty soldiers for every 1,000 civilians. For Iraq, outside of relatively stable Iraqi Kurdistan, that means 450,000 coalition forces, roughly three times what we will have with the current “surge” (actually an escalation) that is being contemplated. Unless adequate troop levels are in country then those troops are really no more than targets for the insurgents.
The general public has no clue as to the doctrinal FUBAR that Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld ordered over the expert advice of Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki. Shinseki is famous for his remarks to the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee before the war in Iraq in which he said “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would probably be required for post-war Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly disagreed with his estimate. General Shinseki was forced to retire and a more pliable General Schoomaker was installed in his place. On November 15, 2006, in testimony before Congress, USCENTCOM Commanding General John Abizaid said that General Shinseki’s estimate had proven correct.
In other words, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice completely ignored the professional advise given by General Shinseki and ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq with only one third of the forces necessary to prevail and provide security for the citizens of Iraq. The forces of the USA and UK, as occupying powers under international law, have clear obligations to protect the Iraqi population. These obligations derive from international humanitarian law, which has long defined the rules on belligerent occupation, complemented by human rights law, which binds any state exercising jurisdiction or control over a territory.
By going into Iraq with insufficient forces to provide security for the Iraqi population the coalition forces, comprised mainly of the US and UK are in violation of international law. Bush, Cheney et al made a deliberate decision, over the advise of military experts, to invade and occupy Iraq without sufficient forces to maintain order in the occupied country.
This is the crime for which Bush and his cohort should be prosecuted. Knowingly and deliberately depriving the people of Iraq of adequate forces to protect them during the coalition occupation.
Jonathan
The purpose of the “surge”
As I explained in my previous post, the upcoming escalation of troops in Iraq will do nothing but provide more targets for the insurgents, the Bush administration is well aware of this.
The escalation is a ploy to buy time for the Bush administration, to allow them to get to January 20, 2009 with substantial US forces still in Iraq. By their reckoning the US will not have “lost” in Iraq and the pundit “talking heads” in the main stream media will support them in this. The intention here is to dump the Iraq quagmire into the lap of the next, presumably Democratic, administration without the Bush administration “losing” the occupation.
When the next administration then does the only rational thing and begins to withdraw from Iraq the Republican “Mighty Wurlitzer” will proclaim loudly and continuously that the Democrats have “lost in Iraq”. The American public, having no clue that the Iraq war was lost from the moment the decision was made to invade with woefully inadequate forces, will quite possibly buy the Republican propaganda machine’s branding of Iraq as Democratic “cutting and running”.
The Republicans and the Bush administration know that this strategy of blaming the Democrats is the only way to keep the Republican party from having the stinking dead albatross of Iraq from being hung around their necks for probably a generation and they will go to any lengths to succeed in their morally bankrupt scheme. The cynicism and sheer immorality of this Republican plan are simply astounding, they are prepared to sacrifice the lives of thousands more American soldiers and Marines and tens of thousands of horrific casualties along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian dead simply to avoid blame for the inevitable consequences of their hubris, egotism, ignorance and lack of foresight.
For the sake of the country, the Decider and his party must not be allowed to escape the consequences of this incredibly poor decision first to invade Iraq and then to do so with only one third of the forces needed to do the job.
Eisenhower began US involvement in VietNam and Nixon ended it. Despite these facts Democrats have for thirty years now been branded by the Republicans as the party which lost VietNam. We must not allow this to happen again with Iraq and the only way to avoid it is to make plain to the American people the Republican plan in all it’s odious iniquitousness.
Adam
What, like political gamesmanship to maneuver us into a pointless war in order to satisfy Bush’s Oedipus complex? Or you mean more like comparing Max Cleland to Osama Bin Laden? So many flavors of traitor, so little time.
ThymeZone
Excellent writeup. The only thing I’d add is references for things like the 20/1000 ratio.
Zifnab
It’s a good piece, but if you want to be taken truly seriously you’ve got to scale back on the snark Jonathan.
Stick to just the facts. Draw your thesis, line up your evidence, sell your point, and close. But being deadly serious and coldly critical is how you appear professional. That’s the difference between Brian Jennings and John Stewart. Or, John Stewart having a laugh on The Daily Show vs John Stewart as he brings down Crossfire, if you prefer.
Detlef
Sadly enough, that´s probably the best summary of Iraq right now.
I was against the war. Not surprising since I´m a cheese eating – chocolate making “Old European”. :)
Although I admit I was undecided in 2002. It might surprise some people, but Europeans actually remembered his use of poison gas in the 1980s too. I was puzzled though because I thought that Bin Laden was the guy to catch first. Couldn´t Saddam Hussein wait a year?
I gradually became anti-war when the UN inspectors didn´t find anything. Not to mention the forged Niger(?) documents.
You know, the ones the IAEA needed two hours (using Google) to decide that they were forgeries. After that my faith in American intelligence was seriously undermined.
After the war started I hoped for the best despite my misgivings. But the “freedom is messy” looting live on TV confirmed my worst fears.
This American administration was clueless and incompetent, despite all their arrogance. That opinion was confirmed during the reign of Bremer and his CPA.
And now – almost four year later – I seriously don´t think the USA, the coalition of the willing, or the Western World could really do something about the situation in Iraq.
What – perhaps – might have been possible in 2003 is no longer possible in 2007.
I fear that ethnic cleansing coupled with a civil war is already a reality in Iraq.
stickler
Detlef:
As an Old European, you probably saw this (trumpeted on the front page of der Spiegel among other places), but among all the other stupidities of this administration, they were quoted, back in October, as telling the German Defense Minister that German troops have to get more aggressive in Afghanistan.
“The Germans,” this idiot said, “must learn to kill.”
Yeah, that’s this Administration’s advice. Just what the world really needs: a more militaristic Germany. The last sixty years have really been too calm in Europe. One stupid gem out of many, but a sublime jewel of stupidity none the less.
Jonathan
I’ll probably do that, Salon’s letters section doesn’t allow embedded links and trying to put them in the text is really klunky and disrupts the flow. Not to mention the fact that I’m far from expert with HTML :)
As for the snark, yeah I guess I got a bit carried away there, I was going for maximum effect and let my vocabulary get out of control. :)
Both of these have been up for a couple of days now on Salon and I haven’t had any replies. I figured out a long time ago that the better job I do on a post, the fewer replies I get.
Anyhoo.. Thanks for the compliments and the criticism.
Mikef
What really astounds me is how much this is truly Bush’ war. He believes the rest of us have no say at all in it. Not the voters, not the Congress, not the Generals or the soldiers on the ground. He’s not going to be rushed. No one else gets a vote.
We don’t get to know what the reasons for the war were. We don’t get to know what the goals of the war are now. We don’t get to know how long we’ll stay or how much it will cost. Instead of pulling together leaders from all areas of government to decide what needs to be done to fix the current mess, he closes the door and tells us to wait another month or two. Has there ever been a war in this country where literally no-one outside the President’s inner circle are allowed to know what’s going on?
Jonathan
I just found out a couple of days ago that right around fifty percent of the American public believes in the “young earth” theory of creationism. That took my faith in American intelligence, which was already pretty low, to hitherto unplumbed depths.
Andrei
I think the next thing to do is rather simple: Call for hearings. If they lead to impeachment, then so be it.
Waiting two more years for people who have shown that they are incompetent is about as criminal as what these morons have done so far.
It’s time for hearings. Many of them and very public.
demimondian
This is a very bad day. Earlier, I had to agree with TZ, and now…I have to agree with Andrei. Hearings are the right thing. Make them public. Don’t launch them with the intention of impeaching the President (after all, it’s not inconceivable that he’ll cooperate), but don’t be afraid of threatening him with impeachment if he tries to play hardball.
Tactically, of course, impeachment resolutions should only be tabled if or when the people have caught on to the inherent authority and responsibility of the Congress to investigate. That’s going to take some months of education, and I’m by no means sure that there’s enough time left.
We’ll see
Krista
But at least you’ll always have pie.
Joe1347
I think that you’re too generous by including the Republicans (in Congress) as being part of Bush’s latest Iraq Fiasco strategy. I suspect that if you could get an honest answer out of most remaining Republicans in Congress. They (the Congressional Republicans) also want us out of Iraq as soon as possible so that the voters don’t throw them the rest of them out in 2008. Iraq looks like it will be a huge albatross hung around the Republican parties neck until 2008. I forget George Wills exact words in one of his recent columns – but it was along the lines of stay (in Iraq) two more years and lose another 50 seats.
This is looking more and more like Bush’s private war and not a Republican Party war. As for why Bush is so adamant for us to continue occupying Iraq. Maybe if we knew why he invaded in the first place, we would understand why he (Bush) wants to stay so badly?
Andrei
I don’t know Demi… it could have been worse. I could have started calling you dirty names or something.
Jonathan
It is the Republicans war in that they voted en mass for it and viciously excoriated anyone who expressed the slightest concerns as to the advisability of said war.
I have no intention of letting the Republican party as a whole off the hook for this mind bogglingly immense FUBAR which they were so desperate to have. Republicans joyfully embraced the tar baby and they have to price or it will come back to bite the rest of us in the ass in the future, you can count on it.
ThymeZone
Jesus wept.
That’s Jesus, my yard guy.
dreggas
OMFG!
If this poll ever goes over 50% I will know I truly live in a country for the mentally handicapped.
I mean WTF? Somehow all the things we learned in school were wrong? All the science of the past century alone is thrown out the window?
I envy the Australians for getting the criminals at this point since we are stuck with the fucking puritans.
Of course I shouldn’t be surprised. I was at an amusement park with my wife’s cousin and her boyfriend as well as some of his family. We’re on some “Land of the Dinosaurs ride” and I shit you not one of the boyfriend’s friends turns to another and says “Do you think dinosaurs really existed, they’re not in the bible?”
Jonathan
Jonathan
OK, here’s a link for the stats on creationism
mclaren
John Cole mentioned:
“The depressing aspects are legion, however. First and foremost, this was predicted to happen by many, and their voices were pushed aside (by yours truly, included).”
It’s incredibly courageous of John Cole to say this. If more Repubs had this kind of honesty, they’d be worthy of being in power. How did the party of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower come to this?
“As to where we go now, I have no clue. It seems like things are getting worse by the day, despite the fact that we have turned yet ‘another corner’ with the execution of Hussein. I am hard pressed to come up with anything other than a gradual withdrawal from the region. I simply do not know what can be done.”
Run.
That’s what America needs to to.
Run. Fast.
American troops need to throw down their weapons and flee. We need fleets of helicopters to grab our troops off rooftops. It’s Saigon in 1975 again, except this time the Green Zone finds itself surrounded by millions of hostile well-armed enemy guerillas, and there’s one hell of a long supply route back to the sea.
The great nightmare in Iraq is encirclement. Cut the supply lines to the south, shoot down choppers that try to helicopter in supplies using stingers and RPGs, and you’ve got the makings of another Dien Bien Phu.
Why don’t Americans realize that this is possible? The American military isn’t supernatural. It’s made up of people who can be shot. When you’re shot in the head, you die. If the U.S. Army finds itself cut off inside the Green Zone with its supply lines cut to the south and besieged by hordes of insurgents climbing over the walls, how long do think the U.S. Army will be able to hold out? Their ammo will run out. Their artillery shells will get used up. And then what?
Then it’s hand to hand combat with screaming jihadists coming at the American troops knives in hand.
Folks, we need to get the U.S. Army out of Iraq NOW. We need to get the U.S. Army out of Iraq R*I*G*H*T N*O*W. Order our troops to fling their packs to the ground, throw away their M16s, and run. We need to get out while our supply lines are still intact and the U.S. Army can still fight its way out to the south. The only other alternative is the long trek to the north up through Kurdish country and into Turkey…and that means a giant shooting gallery through hostile territory. That’s the Bataan Death March, folks. Let’s not even think about that one.