A BAD RELATIONSHIP? It turns out that Gen. Petraeus is not going to write the long-awaited Petraeus Report. It's going to be written by the White House instead. It seems that the White House has been learned anything from their crash studies in Failied Presidency 101. Otherwise, they would have known that any involvement by the Bush White House would make the Petraeus Report about as valuable as Saddam Hussein memorabilia.
Even worse, White House authorship means either that the Bushies don't trust Gen. Petraeus to stay on message with White House talking points or that they already know that Petraeus wouldn't stay on message. Anthony Cordesman came back from Iraq talking about how the surge had failed and why Congress should allow the American military to adapt a strategy of "strategic patience." It looks like the Bush White House didn't have much patience with strategic patience.
SUPPRESSING THE REAL REPORT. According to TPM, the White House's September document on the surge will be written with "input" from Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. That means that Petraeus' input is the "real" Petraeus report. If some reporter could get a copy of a document reflecting Petraeus' "real" opinion, that would be a sure Pulitzer if Petraeus was more pessimistic than the President. As a result, one of the dynamics of the September reporting will be whether the White House decides to release Petraeus' report to them.
TODAY'S TERRORIST ATTACK. Between 250 and 500 members of the Kazidi sect have been killed by a terrorist attack on a village alongside Iraq's border with Syria. General Petraeus treats the attack as a predictable part of a terrorist onslaught to influence American public opinion in response to the Petraeus Report. I wish the inability of the American military to stop this kind of attack hadn't been so predictable as well. If Iraqi terrorists are going to succeed in the series of spectacular attacks they supposedly plan for September, it's pretty obvious that the surge has had no effect on terrorist capabilities.
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Read up a bit on asymetrical warfare and counter-insurgency, then come back and comment on the military's success at preventing attacks. Playing a couple games of stratego in the faculty lounge doesn't count towards military studies.
That Petraeus isn't directly reporting his take on the surge does provide dems room to criticise, especially if it seems to track closely with Bush's presurge expectations.
But... you go off half cocked on the matter. Since the report will be a combination of the input of two seperate individuals, it would seem appropriate that a third party draft it. You cannot conclude from that alone that
1. the actual input of those two individuals won't be available.
2. the report won't accurately reflect their input.
Now, when the report is actually out and there is actual evidence that either of those statements is actually true, then you can have some actual outrage instead of this knee jerk, preemptive outrage the left is so fond of.
Everything I read and hear on the "surge" indicates that through some luck and pluck we have made some military gains. Of course, the stated goal of the surge was not military victory, but a political reconciliation. Since the Sunnis have left the government and no progress has been made in "reviewing" the Constitution, reconciling Sunnis with the government, or sharing oil, I guess we can just chalk this up as another failure of our political leadership.
Unlike the military, which works its ass off and does a pretty good job, the political leadership of this country is just miserable.
Interestingly enough, I read a reporter's opinion of the detente with the Sunni tribal leaders in which he indicated this was a strategy born of desperation and short-term politics. He said he felt the Bushies were arming the Sunnis so there could be a downtick in violence in the short-term, while this clearly will result in long-term violence between Sunni and Shia.
Miserable failures. 2009 cannot come fast enough.
ef, I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and imagine you will approve the report Patreaus will give and say we need to stay in Iraq. The Professor will not like it (I will be noting the failure of it stated aims). Dr. Caric's views on withdrawal or redeployment or unknown to me, but I'm guessing he will favor one of those options (I will continue to favor redeployment).
none of it will matter one wit. The Dems can't force the Republican filibuster, because just enough 26%-er's will be voting in Republican primaries and the C-in-C is a moron, who is bound and determined to drop this war in the lap of the next President.
By the way, while I'm predicting, let me also add that at that time the righties will do an about face (think Kosovo and how they react to military success when a Dem is President) and all the shortages of body armor, long deployments, incompetent administration of Iraq will suddenly be her fault.
Such is the partisanship that is tearing this country apart.
Why didn't that register as me?
Of course, the stated goal of the surge was not military victory, but a political reconciliation.
Half the benchmarks are political (and are almost certainly not met, or showing much progress), but the point of the "surge" was to meet the military goals.
the political leadership of this country is just miserable.
If you're tossing in both sides, I would absolutely agree.
you will approve the report Patreaus will give
Having not seen it, I have no idea. If it's accurate about what's transpired, I'll accept it. My approval is irrelevant.
(I will continue to favor redeployment).
Me too. I hear Tehran is nice this time of year.
think Kosovo and how they react to military success when a Dem is President
Now that Serbia has been cleared by an international court for having been involved in the genocide that was taking place are you ready to condemn Clinton for having lied to us to get us involved in that one and killing innocent people over perceived injustices?
No. The niceties of international Courts aside (and the difficulties of proving state genocide...see Rwanda), I will stand by a relatively bloodless and successful intervention. So would you, if you weren't so far to the right.
I will bet $50 right now that you will be defending Petreaus's report the second the AEI, the Weekly Standard, or Jeff Goldstein trumpet it's success.
By the way, the surge stuff was so easy to debunk it took me less than a minute. Here's a quote from the Dear Leader's speech to the nation on January 10, 2007
A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.
The link is here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html
You might notice the President opens his speech saying political progress had been made, but the political progress disintegrated in the face of a security crisis. Seems politics was important...
Anyway, nice disagreeing with you, as usual
Isn't this report mandated by Congressional legislation? What does the legislation say about who is to contribute, and who is to author this.
I guess when you are inherently and reflexively opposed to anything done by this White House, it is easy to see how this would bother you. However, you assume bad faith and impure motives and decry something that has not happened.
If the Generals' positions are represented accurately, for what reason would you not accept it?
If the Generals' positions are not accurate, why would you accept it?
So far, General Petraeus has been more than willing to discuss his positions, and it is safe to assume that should the White House distort his views, he will not hesitate to make that known.
Until such point in time, posts like this simply imply some nefarious undertaking when the reality is that it has not even happened. You are complaining about a potential hypothetical situation.
Besides, didn't Sen. Reid already declare that he would not believe Gen. Petraeus anyway?
From the Washington Post:
An Early Clash Over Iraq Report
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/2007/
08/15/AR2007081501281_pf.html
In this article the Post reports that the White House does not Patreaus and Crocker to testify in public, but wants them to "brief" Congress behind closed doors (stops all that pesky swearing in and all...and those questions! Who do they think they are? Elected representatives of the People?).
As I said above, JD, when the report comes out, you will agree that everything is going smoothly and I will not. I do not need St. David to tell me that the benchmarks haven't been met. It's clear they won't be. I don't need to see Maliki shaking hands with the Iranian President to see trouble on the horizon.
You, on the other hand, will keep the faith. In the end, it won't matter, because nothing will change.
Oh, by the way, Hannity, errr, JD, Senator Reid's entire quote, although ignored on talk shows and blogs like Protein Wisdom is this: "I believe myself that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense -- and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows -- that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday."
See, JD, in addition to re-iterating his correct position that the war cannot be won militarily (which he did from the Senate floor that day and the following days), Senator Reid is also accusing Dr. Rice and Secretary Gates of knowing it too.
It's a lot tougher statement than you give it credit for.
Personally, as I've said before, i think we've already won. We had three goals: To depose Saddam (check), to eliminate WMD's (check), and to institute democracy (check). Let's get the hell out of dodge and declare victory. Norm Podhoretz, Ollie North, and Wolfowitz can drive the get away Bradley! WOOO HOOOO! Look on the Jordanian border, it's Lee Greenwood and Bill Kristol, singing Proud to be an American!
Mission Accomplished.
But, then again, I'm not the President
JD and ef, I think you like this assessment (yes, I know it is a cut and paste):
Hello, Lt. Col. Bob Bateman here again today.
Schofield Barracks, June, 1991: The main buildings on this infantry-dominated post are called "Quads." Massive, squat structures, built by the Work Projects Administration during the Depression, each is large enough to house an entire brigade of men, three full battalions. Beyond that, they also have enough room left over to fit the offices for the company and battalion headquarters of each unit.
That summer I was a newly minted First Lieutenant, promoted up and away from my beloved rifle platoon and onto the battalion staff. My battalion of "Light" (meaning we carried all that we would take to war, on our backs, but required fewer airplanes and ships to get us there) Infantry was about to deploy to the Egyptian-Israeli border as part of the peacekeeping force that had been on site since the Camp David accords. It was a static mission, but tensions remained high in the region in the wake of Desert Storm.
Our role was to "Observe, Report, and Verify" any violations of the accords. The system worked because peace was already in place. Still, the mission required significant retraining from our normal role as assault troops. That training occupied much of the preceding six months, though as is always the case, as the deadline of our deployment approached, there always seemed to be more and more that had to be done. On this afternoon the assembled company commanders (captains), the battalion commander (a lieutenant colonel), and the battalion staff (captains and majors, mostly) were meeting for the weekly "Battalion Training Meeting." These meetings are recurrent rituals played out at every Army post around the world. Here, every week, we laid out the plan for the next week, month, and quarter, so that the actions of 750 men might be coordinated. There is no time to be wasted in these meetings.
Captain Dave T, known among his peers by his nickname "Trash," commanded one of our companies. He was one of the best leaders I have ever known. Direct, intelligent, approachable for even the most junior private, and honest -- Trash did not suffer fools gladly, and we junior officers and men who followed him loved him for it. On this afternoon he sat midway down the length of the conference table. Slouching almost to the point where his eyes were level with the table, as was his norm, Trash soaked it all in. Boredom visibly poured from his soul. The meeting, normally planned for an hour, was approaching its third. Yet still the battalion commander continued.
"Finally, we need to address the critical issue of safety. As you all know, 'Herb's Beach' is right outside the wire of South Camp," Lieutenant Colonel H____ said, "and it represents our primary threat."
Lieutenant Colonel H___ had recently returned from a reconnaissance to the Sinai Desert and his mind was, literally, overflowing. Given that there was nothing actually in that desert at the time but sand, rock, some Bedouin, and some camels, this does not speak well of LTC H___. "South Camp" was, and is, the base for the American battalion on rotation. The beach to which he referred was 40 yards of sand at the edge of the Red Sea, where a dry wadi ran to the water's edge. A decade earlier, another unit cut a notch through the coral, thereby making it possible to swim. (The coral shelf that lines the coast of the Gulf of Aquba has only a few feet of water over the top otherwise.) It was, in the South Sinai, a very small refuge of relaxation for our men. LTC H___, however, saw it through another lens.
"The 82nd lost a lieutenant on that beach last year. It's a threat," LTC H___ said, referring to a unit from the 82nd Airborne Division, which had done a rotation the previous year, yet ignoring the fact that the lieutenant in question had been scuba diving, not snorkeling or swimming on the surface, as our men would be doing, since scuba had now been banned. "We need to have every man in the battalion swim tested at the division pool, and those who do not pass must take remedial lessons until they can."
What he was ordering was, literally, thousands of man-hours of training, let alone the time needed to coordinate it all. It was not possible. We were to start leaving in six weeks. You could take a crowbar, a 10-pound sledge, and a bucketful of grease and you still could not jam that much into the little time we had remaining. But the company commanders were silent. They just took it in. It is a long way from captain to lieutenant colonel. They were quiet, I should say, but for one.
From his nearly subterranean seat, Captain Trash raised two fingers. This, for Trash, was significant motion. The Battalion Commander nodded.
"Sir, you're kidding, right?" Trash began, sitting up and giving LTC H___ at least the nominal benefit of the doubt. Every officer in that room knew we did not have the time remaining to do as the LTC demanded. Every officer also knew, from experience, that it was useless presenting this boss with inconvenient facts. Trash was about to become my hero and my role model. LTC H___ insisted that he was not, in fact, joking, and that this was a critical issue of safety, and that we would just have to make it work for the sake of our men.
That last is a telling call-out. "The safety of the men" really is something we take seriously. Sometimes, however, common sense gets overruled. Trash had common sense, and he knew that he would not convince our numerically challenged leader with an analysis of the time remaining versus the potential threat. He cut to the point.
"Sir, I don't know if you've noticed this," Trash began, sarcasm whispering from his posture, "but right now, I mean today, and pretty much every day for the past two years since I've been here ... we've been surrounded by 2,500 miles of open ocean, thousands of feet deep, with beaches 360 degrees around us that our men visit every weekend, and not a man has drowned from this unit at all, probably since Vietnam."
Schofield Barracks, you see, is on the island of Oahu, in the Hawaiian Island chain, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The battalion commander wanted us to force 750 men to take swim training ... in order to go to the desert, from an island.
The room was hushed, and then we could not contain it. We erupted in laughter. It was the only "weapon" with which it was possible to win even a small victory with that particular battalion commander. He ceded Trash's point, and the idea, the very-stupid-but-very-safe-idea, was unceremoniously dropped.
One year later that LTC was selected for the War College. He went on to be promoted to full colonel. Captain Trash, who was evaluated by LTC H____ on a yearly basis, never made it past major. He was "non-selected" and inevitably forced out of the Army.
What I have just described was not an entirely uncommon situation, not in the 1990s or, indeed, ever. There have always been idiots in uniform, and some of them get commissions. This is a fact of life, in war and peace. But during the 1990s it may have reached its peak. "Safety" and risk avoidance are good things. But unlike, say, the factory floor at General Motors, my profession is about taking calculated risk with human life. Training, for combat, is itself inherently dangerous. Sometimes crazily so. But to make it possible for your men to survive when other men are really seriously trying to kill them, you have to train them under conditions as close as you can get to the insanity that is war.
We lost some of that focus in the 1990s. We lost our edge, our willingness to push to the limits, not just physically, but intellectually as well, which is understandable in that rudderless decade. The result was a generation of officers who saw the most risk-averse of those above them advance while those who took the correct risks, or spoke candidly, felt the mallet.
In any sufficiently large organization, especially one paranoid and averse to risk, one route to the top is to avoid being wrong, even if that means also avoiding being right. There are generals I know, some with four stars, who I am personally convinced made it to their great rank because they never, ever, made a decision. This works because if you make a decision, you might be wrong, but if you never make a decision, statistically, you are always going to appear as "better" than those who made 95 percent correct decisions, since the only thing that would stand out would be the wrong one.
We are, in war, now regaining that edge among our officers. Historically this is about the only thing at which the American Army actually excels when compared against all other armies. We do learn. But it is a slow war, and changing a culture is a slow thing, even for us. We are finding officers who speak clearly, who lead candidly, who take the calculated risks that their experience tells them are necessary, and who accept when they are wrong. I believe that there are at least some of my peers who speak truth, regardless, because doing the right thing is more important than looking "right" in front of the boss.
I have no clue what General David Petraeus will say next month when he gives his assessment. I do know that no matter what he says, some significant percentage of the American people will write him off as a stooge, or a fool, while others will hail him a hero. Both groups will cite the same words Petraeus speaks as their "evidence" for their opinion. I suspect General P knows this as well. What I would like to pass to you, today, is my assessment. Take it for what it is worth. General P is smart, and he is savvy, both of which make him come off to some people as "political." He is not. But he is more like Trash than he is like LTC H, and that reassures me.
I think the part about hailed as hero and vilified as political rings true to what I see. Strangely, I don't see that Army of the '90's as different from any account I EVER read about the US Army in peacetime, but, since none of us has been an officer in the US Army...
A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.
Between the the phrases "beyond military" and "operations are accompanied" this quote reads to me as if it supports my conclusion: the political/civil benchmarks are in addition to military goals. The clincher is the last part "hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks", not the US military. As I noted above, there are two sets of goals. One half military and one half political. The surge is there to support the former. The Iraqi government is responsible for the latter. There is undoubtedly some level of crossover support in both directions. That does not alter on which party the responsibility falls.
If you're going to use something to debunk a statement at least make sure it supports your conclusion. This one doesn't.
Comprehension > you
No, timb, I will not "agree that things are going smoothly". I will agree that General Petraeus and the other officials reported their views and observations of the situation as they experienced it, and am willing to support their conclusions and plans for going forward. In short, I am willing to let the people who have actual knowledge of the situation make these decisions.
this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything,
The surge had not even started, and his comments about not believing Petraeus if he said things were improving followed. Look, Sen. Reid has a position. It was refreshing that he was honest. I am cool with that.
By the way, if General Petraeus is more like Trash, I am cool with that.
The surge began in January and was completed in June.
Ef, if you are going to argue like a PW commenter, perhaps you just go back? Parsing every sentence from the President's address is not appropriate. Althought, I enjoy the Clinton-esque interpretation of the word "it", "it" in the quote clearly means "the America government", since they are benchmarks written by our Congress and the White House in 2005. There are 18 of them and only a few have been met and there has been no action on most of the other.
I mean, how hard is it really to reflect facts? It's common knowledge that the surge is a temporary tactic designed to create security within Baghdad. For what, ef? Construction of amusement parks? So Mike Pence can travel to a summer market in Indiana? No, as the President said in the address, to provide security so the Iraqis can find a political solution to the Sunni insurgency and the Shia death squads.
Has it come this far in the partisan divide that the righties can't even admit what the purpose of a military operation is?
I parsed one sentence, that you provided to support your statement.
Whatever "it" means in the sentence, it doesn't change who is responsible for accomplishing those goals. They require action by the Iraqi government.
the surge is a temporary tactic designed to create security within Baghdad
Correct. The military doesn't create Iraqi laws. Security is intended to give them the oppurtunity to accomplish their goals, not for the US military to do so.
to provide security so the Iraqis can find a political solution
Again, this statement clearly seperates the two. The U.S. provides security (military goals) so that the Iraqis can find a politcal solution (political goals). Again, the security goals are designed to enable the political process, not accomplish it. If I hand you a donut so that you can eat it, I'm not eating the donut for you (unless it's boston creme then you can keep your mitts off my donut, I'm eating it myself).
I mean, how hard is it really to reflect facts?
Persistence, timb. Stick with it and you'll likely catch on.
Further reflection.
I think I may be able to reconcile our views here. I get that you're saying the hoped for end result of the surge is a political reconciliation, and I agree with that statement. It seems important to me however to note that the surge itself is only able to accomplish the military portion of those goals while accomplishing the political goals is outside of the control of the US military or political leadership.
I think that goes a fair way toward reconciling them (I certainly feel better about it!).
I think the distinction between our points is on what "success" means. Personally, and you know this from our conversations, I have relatives who have been in Iraq (and you have approximately, everyone you know!). I know from them the military has been doing the best with what it has in Iraq since 2003, but that the place is a mess.
The political leadership of both countries has let them down.
In the present case, the military has done a decent job of suppressing large mass casualty operation in Baghdad, but, as I'm sure you're aware, Clausewitz said "War is policy by other means." The Surge, as a tactic, is working better than I thought it would, but as a strategy, it is and will fail, because the Strategy is to create an environment for political reconciliation.
Otherwise, I agree that the military situation has improved somewhat (at the cost of more Americans dead, which was to be expected), but that the costs paid will be seen as pointless, given the absence of progress toward the American benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
Okay, but don't expect hugs, me being a traditional man and all.
Oh, I'll get that hug!
timb - The surge did not being in January and end in June, unless you define the surge as the movement of troops to the area and staging.
JD, I never said it ended in June, I said the increase in numbers of folks added to Baghdad ended in June. This "escalation" as a tactic can only be maintained for about 6 months after everyone is in place. A fair reading would have noted that.
The surge began in January and was completed in June.
That is your complete, stand-alone, sentence, and it is patently wrong. Your inability to admit that you either made a mistake, or were insufficiently clear with your language is your issue, not mine.
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