The 80,000 and 50,000 figures come from this TWS piece. 80,000 is clearly what he thinks it would take to secure Baghdad all at once: “Conducting Tal Afar-type operations across the entire capital region all at once would require concentrating all available forces in the area and a ‘surge’ of about 80,000 U.S. soldiers.” 50,000 is his ballpark figure for what it would take to do it in phases:
There is every reason to believe that a reformulated operation, proceeding in phases to clear Baghdad neighborhood by neighborhood, but with sufficient force levels to leave significant American troops behind in the cleared areas, would be much more successful. It is impossible to estimate precisely how many more U.S. troops would be needed in the capital area, or in Iraq, without proposing a detailed military plan. But since the high end of estimates for doing the whole area at once produced the requirement for a surge of 80,000 or so, it is very likely that a surge of 50,000 American troops would be sufficient to stabilize the capital.
And 50,000 is not that different from what Kagan and Keane came up with when they sat down and did a more detailed military plan for securing Baghdad in phases (a huge part of the city, Sadr City, was left off the table in their plan). They called for five brigades and two regiments to Baghdad and Anbar, more than 30,000 combat troops (but even more troops than that if you count logistics, etc. to support the combat troops). Bush has proposed sending five brigades and a regiment to Baghdad and Anbar, almost precisely what Kagan/Keane proposed. The difference comes in the way the brigades are being counted. The Bush administration is low-balling them as 3,500 troops each, so it comes up with a lower total number.
None of this is to suggest that all is well with the Bush surge plan or that it exactly mimics Kagan/Keane, but it is unfair to charge Kagan with inconsistency on the numbers.
See, you dummies! (via Sullivan).
I don’t know for sure, but I am of the opinion that the surge, even properly manned, would do little to quell the civil war and would lead to much larger casualty figures for the US. Undermanned and half-assed, and it is almost a certainty.
craigie
You mean, Stay the Course ™ with Extra Bonus Troops won’t work?
Who could have predicted that?
Zifnab
The idea that we’re going to make it a minute more in Iraq without “much larger casualties” is fiction. I’m not even going to try to guesstimate how the casualties would increase or decrease with this new troop deployment.
And I think the key word in all of this is “half-assed”. So far, every top-down military decision we make seems to come out of someone’s left ass-cheek. And Bush seems to be sending these guys in for no other reason than to pick a fight with Iran. If Bagdad doesn’t get secured, I doubt it will be because the troop surge didn’t work so much as because the troop surge was never even really applied there.
Paddy O'Shea
At Bushco, incompetence is a full-time job …
AP: Iran gets army gear in Pentagon sale
WASHINGTON – The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries – including Iran and China – who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department’s surplus auctions.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070116/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_surplus_stings
ThymeZone
Dkos had an article Sunday with some considerable detail to the effect that Kagan is a fraud, having no particular expertise or credentials to qualify him to be making serious foreign or war policy analyses.
Shocking that the Bush administration would be relying on the advice of an incompetant dilettante …. but there it is.
Paddy O'Shea
Speaking of the extraordinary incompetence in the face of phantom WMD, it would appear that Iraq and Iran are moving to cement their relationship despite whatever it is President Georgie thinks he is doing. This according to a front page in today’s Los Angeles Times.
Of course, there is one way to stop Tehran from gaining control of most of Iraq, but it would involve more than an additonal 20,000 American troops.
What a disaster Bush is …
Faux News
I’m getting really sick and tired of you “nattering nabobs of negativism” here on BJ regarding the War in Iraq.
Therefore to inspire Darrell and other right thinkers I give you more wisdom of the 39th Vice President of the United States regarding opposition to the Vietnam War:
“pusillanimous pussyfoots”,
“hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history”,
“the liberal intellectuals…masochistic compulsion to destroy their country’s strength”,
“effete corps of impudent snobs”, and
“radiclib,” a blend of “radical liberal”.
Darrell: please feel free to use these handy dandy phrases on all Liberal Websites to smite the dirty hippies where ever they may blog.
Pb
In a way, “80,000 = 50,000 = 20,000” is right–that is to say, if the goal is simply to put more troops into Iraq, so as to “wait another Friedman”, as they have been doing for the past six Friedmans or so… unfortunately for them, even Tom Friedman has changed his rhetoric by now:
Oh, now he notices. And he wants a timetable. And a “$45-a-barrel floor price for imported oil”. And a pony. (no one tell Friedman that we import roughly 60% of our oil–much of it from Canada and Mexico!)
RSA
Am I correct in inferring that the original 80,000 estimate Kagan came up with was before he sat down and did a “more detailed” military plan? That strikes me as being pretty half-assed. How could any serious person settle on a number before doing an analysis? It would be worth asking what exactly changed between the higher half-assed number and the lower but doubtless still half-assed number.
poppinfresh
Am I the only one who really likes the idea of Iran flying outdated American aircraft in any potential conflict? I mean, how much easier to shoot down could they be- WE KNOW EXACTLY HOW THEY WORK! Half of air to air combat is training against the known capabilities of your opponent, and giving them crappy old plane parts for the F-14 really tickles my boat.
Heck, slap some homing beacons in there while you’re at it!
Ok, I’m mostly kidding, just pointing out that there’s a silver lining even to criminal bureaucratic incompetence.
As to the main story: Kagan and his ilk were outed as surpassingly incompetent in the pre-war drum-up thanks to books like “The Assasin’s Gate” (second post in a row I’ve pimped that book, heh), so why does anyone care? It sometimes confuses me why you guys get all worked up about stuff that originates from proven idiots like Limbaugh or Coulter or whatever. Even worse, Kagan isn’t a media icon, just a disgraced neocon plumber who can’t count, so the crushing irrelevance of his opinion takes my breath away.
Zifnab
That’s particularly true if you are Lockheed Martin.
Andrew
Kagan is dangerous to the point where the next administration should render him, extraordinarily.
grumpy realist
FT has an op-ed this morning about the continuing involvement of the neocons and what their techniques are. (Draw your conclusions, then run around for an “expert” to prop them up.) Interesting slant.
Andrew
By which I mean into his principle components, lard and bullshit, not to Syria.
poppinfresh
Zif, didn’t you know that linking to Daily Kos can cause brain cancer?
That article is unimpressive. Democrats will “drain the swamps” of lobbyists when Robot George Washington returns to sink the whole city into the Potomac. That whole piece was a blatant pro-Dem handjob. The entire U.S. government has revolved around lobbying since it was founded, in every industry and in every way.
If the public doesn’t like it, they should vote that way. Otherwise, everyone is dirty and we should stop pretending anything short of Delay-ism is shocking.
Historical Wit
Actually according to this news article, the Russians are cashing in on that Iran oil money and selling them some Tor M-1’s. Sound familiar? Kinda like stingers being sold in Afghanistan in the 80’s to shoot down soviet aircraft?
Payback, this time its for real
Zifnab
I was more linking to the Playboy than the DKos. :-p
Jonathan
From: Wikipedia
BobJones
Djerejian deals with this latest surge math bullshit here
So much of this “plan” is based on wishful thinking and the suspension of rational thought.
Punchy
Well, we’re getting there. I’m not sure what’s more disturbing: this:
Or this (cant link to it b/c of BJs bass-ackward 1-link max), but it’s on rawstory.com, and it concerns ING issuing what amounts to a “hey, we warned all you rich people” concerning their investments and the Israeli strike on Iran in March.
Good old War by Proxy. Let the Israelis start this mess, and then we’ll be “forced” to help. Too easy.
srv
I hear the operation is being referred to as Operation Go Limp(tm) in some quarters.
Keith
This surge/escalation will not work because we have already lost. Sure, we won the military victory back when our goal was to depose Hussein, but this nebulous “victory” that Bush speaks of has a floating definition, and as it is currently defined (a secured, stable Iraq…or even Baghdad), is simply not possible. When you crack a vase into a few pieces, you can superglue it back together, almost as good as new; when you shatter it into dust, you can hire 100,000 children with tweezers for hands, but you will never, ever have a vase again. When someone like Cheney complains that opposition has no plan for victory, it’s because according to the parameters set (security and stability within 1-2 US political cycles), such a victory is not possible.
sparky
with each new seemingly deliberate half-baked initiative i’m starting to find attractive the argument that for certain forces in the Administration there is a perverse incentive flowing from some of the USA screwups. (see, for example, some of the comments in Col. Lang’s blog.) permanent instability (though not at the current level) in Iraq will mean a permanent presence there. i would think that at least some people think it would be a great idea to have the USA as a permanent buffer in Iraq (ala South Korea, maybe?). in common parlance, let the big dumb oaf take all the arrows, or paint the fence, or whatever (oh, and take the oil, too because it’s not as if a low-level conflict stopped the diamond trade, for example). this version of events has the advantage of a familiar motif in the Bush era: playing various ideological groups with feints towards a position while the deeper purpose remains shrouded. and the Bush people certainly know how to play the ideological keyboard. if there’s a permanent US presence there, there’s certainly no need for negotiation, either. it’s not as if the US will have territory issues to resolve, for example.
i’m not suggesting that this was always the plan; it’s really speculation as to whether this notion might be finding a home as a second-best solution. i realize that in some sense this might be considered an unspeakably offensive plan, but given the last five years, i have had to adjust my notions of just how far, exactly, the current Administration might go in the service of an objective (as opposed to an idea).
has there been any slowdown in the construction of permanent bases in Iraq?
Steve
Actually, the very first item on the Democrats’ “100 Hours Agenda” that they ran and won on was breaking the link between lobbyists and legislation.
I wouldn’t claim that lobbying reform is a huge priority for the public, but I still don’t know what more you want from the voters. Even if most people don’t know the nuts and bolts of how legislation gets passed, they knew they didn’t like the way the Republican Congress did business.
Shabbazz
Fixed.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
Welcome to the Shrill side. :P
Tsulagi
This new “surge” is essentially an escalated Operation Together Forward which was the last great plan. That one was a complete failure. To clear, hold, and build, we asked the Maliki government for eight brigades. They agreed to six, then after delays parts of two showed up. While the tour extended 172nd Stryker Brigade did the clearing, the militia-ridden Iraqi Army was to do the holding. Yeah, that worked well.
The IAs let who didn’t want to be caught by our forces through their checkpoints, or just abandoned them all together. When the 172nd moved to another area to be cleared, IAs let approved bad guys come back in behind them. The whole operation was a bad joke.
In the new and improved surge, the roles will be reversed: IAs are to clear and we’re to hold. That should be much better. You just know how diligent they’ll be in identifying and rooting out fellow militia members.
Bush said Iraq will put up 18 brigades when less than six months ago they couldn’t/wouldn’t put together two full brigades for operations in part of Baghdad. The 18 are not going to happen. Their taking out Sadr City is not going to happen. So Decider Man has another option as to who to tag with the loss. That’s what is really important.
Jake
Meanwhile back in Afghanistan….
Perhaps the 1,200 from the Mountain Brigade will have to commute.
Darrell
I hope that doesn’t turn out to be the case. As for the accusation of dishonest “Republican” math, Lowry clarifies in detail here
demimondian
D-boy, that’s a lie. You accurately quote Lowry, but what you’re quoting is a lie.
Darrell
Explain for us then, what is the “lie”?
Jonathan
Umm.. Not according to the Pentagon.
Darrell
Where is this “memo”? Please cite your source, so we can determine whether this is another moonbat lie, or something that should be taken seriously.
Darrell
Looks like the mysterious Pentagon memo is another moonbat fabrication.
demimondian
That part is a lie, D-boy. He ignores those two cases, as the third case, which is what Kagan eventually spit out, is the only one which can be said to matter. That’s a classic misdirection, and Lowry uses it to avoid speaking to the argument actually made.
Around here, we call it a “jackalope”. You know all about those.
demimondian
Great use of Google, D-boy. Except that none of the sites that Google finds debunk the original memo.
Now, for your education, student, explain why I would call your posting “A lie”. For extra credit, acknowledge that, in fact, it was.
TenguPhule
shorter Darrell: I disbelieve! Roll for saving throw vs Reality!
Darrell
Which demoonstrates my point. If the memo was real, it would be blockbuster news with many mainstream media cites to go along with that quote.
You’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you demi?
Darrell
For the record, as recently as Dec. 17, 2006, Harry Reid was advocating more troops in Iraq. Other than unprincipled partisan politics before country, what other reason could there possibly be for the leader of the Senate Democrats to make such an about face only 2 1/2 weeks later?
demimondian
Why would that be, pray tell?
For those of you who’ll actually listen, here’s why that argument, although superfically plausible is actually junk. (That means it’s ok for you to not be listening, D-boy. Don’t bother your cute little head.) D-boy’s query asked for the leading text in the article, not references or discussions about it. The search infrastructure looks for words you ask for. When one asks for that many words (in an English query, yadda, yadda), one will find only verbatim citations of the article, in general.
So, D-boy, the important part (the explanation) is over. Now, would you like to complete your homework, and explain why I’m going to term your original post a lie? I think we can probably bail on extra credit here.
demimondian
Oh, and D-boy? You know that Reid quote? It shows that Reid listened to his constituents and colleagues are changed his mind as other people convinced him he’d made a mistake. You could afford to learn from that kind of behavior.
But I’m not too worried that you will do so any time soon. You’ll still be around to make fun of for the foreseeable future.
TenguPhule
Shorter Darrell: My lack of evidence of falsehood proves it must be false!
Shorter Darrell: If it doesn’t say what I want, I will edit it until it does!
TenguPhule
Textbook example of why Darrell is full of shit
Darrell keeps insisting that everything is going swimmingly in Iraq, even when it isn’t.
jake
From the article linked above:
I of course don’t dispute that refugees want to go home. But I would submit Sauerberry could not have picked a worse time to demonstrate her knowledge of Bush’s talking points. What the fuck does that mean? No no, you can’t leave. You just sit tight until the fighting that has killed your relatives and wiped out your neighborhood ends.
And let’s see, a lot of refugees are flocking to Syria, a country Bush says is a problem. But what the refugees will remember is Syria helped me while the US said it was better for me to live in a god damned tent until they accomplished their mission. No divided loyalties there.
You’re doin’ a heckuva job Ellie!
JoeTx
The troop “surge” to Iraq is only there for “force protection”. Their gonna need it after Bush bombs Iran and the Shites in Iraq turn on us hard in revenge…
I’ll take bets on that….