Iraq: Reducing Troop Levels To Back Where We Started
Posted on Sat Aug 18, 2007 at 09:49:43 AM EST
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The Bush Administration's purpose for the Surge has always been to distract from the call for withdrawal from Iraq. In today's NYTimes, they admit it:
White House to Offer Iraq Plan of Gradual Cuts
The White House plans to use a report next month assessing progress in Iraq to outline a plan for gradual troop reductions beginning next year that would fall far short of the drawdown demanded by Congressional opponents of the war, according to administration and military officials. One administration official made it clear that the goal of the planned announcement was to counter public pressure for a more rapid reduction and to try to win support for a plan that could keep American involvement in Iraq on “a sustainable footing” at least through the end of the Bush presidency.
Now Bush gets to announce troop reductions. But the reductions will, in the best of circumstances, leave us at troop levels that existed prior to the Surge. Oh by the way, this too will be a NEW strategy:
The officials said the White House would portray its approach as a new strategy for Iraq, a message aimed primarily at the growing numbers of Congressional Republicans who have criticized President Bush’s handling of the war. Many Republicans have urged Mr. Bush to unveil a new strategy, and even to propose a gradual reduction of American troops to the levels before this year’s troop increase — about 130,000 — or even lower to head off Democratic-led efforts to force the withdrawal of all combat forces by early next year.
This has always been nothing but a game for the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans. The Surge may have been a serious strategy for General Petraeus. For the Bush Administration it has always been an attempt to run out the clock until the end of his term. More.
Here is the core of the fakery:
There has been no Surge in training of Iraqi forces, or evidence of imporvement in the performance of Iraq forces. If anything, the Iraqis have more clearly divided themselves. The Shia faction are clearly aligned with a now solely Shia/Kurd government. The Sunnis have been stocked by the American military in exchange for fighting Al Qaida in Anbar. And Muktada Al Sadr remains at odds with the US and the Maliki government. And just over the horizon looms Iran, enjoying thre disastrous knots the US continues to ties itself into. But the "key to reducing US troop presence in Iraq is the Iraqis standing up" - as we have heard for 3 years now. But what have we been doing about that? Very little apparently:
Although no decision has been made about the full extent of the American combat mission next year, administration officials and military officers say the troops in Iraq would shift priorities to training and supporting Iraq forces. . . .
Anyone reading these type of stories for the past 4 years must know by now that it is all just blather. Blather to cover up an ongoing Debacle with no path to success, no end in sight and no leaders will the Bush Administration willing to admit it.
Unfortunately, we do not have a Congress willing to put an end to the Bush Administrations shenanigans. Nor a Media willing to tell the truth.
A Perfect Storm of incompetence, mendacity, apathy, and political cowardice.
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