Were here one way not to fail, don't have any other options. This should go well...oh, and that dirty word containment is coming up again.
No U.S. Backup Strategy For Iraq
"Pace had a simple way of summarizing the administration's position, Gov. Phil Bredesen (D-Tenn.) recalled. "Plan B was to make Plan A work."Most options involve partial or complete U.S. redeployment from Baghdad and other violent urban centers, followed by containment of the civil war within Iraq's borders -- keeping out meddlesome neighbors such as Iran and preventing a wider, regional conflict. Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, a former chief of Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East, said Congress is "drifting toward containment" and predicted that option will soon begin gaining popularity."
7 comments:
Let the Generals fight the war, and keep the politicians out. They are why Vietnam went down the toilet
My only concern is the following: Does the U.S. even have enough troops for a Plan B? Therefore, "Plan B was to make Plan A work" is the most rational choice. At the same time, Plan A was flawed since the begining anyway. Is there really any solution?
The first person is right. Politics don't belong in war. Before we went into Fallujah there was a 2 week wait period because of the US presidential election. A lot of the terrorrists ran away.
Kick the news media out as well. They help terrorist constantly frame us as the bad guys. For example in Afghanistan - a US bombing killed a family. That is re-played over and over. Guess what... there were rocket attacks coming from those two houses at a U.S. base. You don't hear that on the news do you? By the time authorities got there the ruble was already picked through... no weapons or insurgents were found (WHAT A SURPIRSE!) and again we are the big bad americans killing civilians.
The current rules of engagment are a bunch of crap. Soldiers are not allowed to activley go after insurgents unless a go is given up top. Only a few specific units can do so and tehy have had tremendous sucess (including killing Zarqawi. Units should have the freedom to act upon intelligence instantly not wait while the enemy has time to escape.
When an airstrike killed Zarqawi there was a woman and a child in the same house along with his companion. ALl were killed. Even though Zarqawi was the biggest piece of shit on this planet starting what we see today as "secterian violence"... cutting aid workers heads off... we were still portrayed as the bad guys. So who's fault was it? Was it our fault that said piece of shit and his dumbass companion (who's kid and wife happens to be his) went to his house with a wife (she knew what he was involved in anyways so not too much regret that she died) and mainly a child in it?
Everybody keeps talking about failure in Iraq. What do you measure this supposed failure by? There is no plan B because plan A hasn't even been completley developed. Things change on a day to day basis in an insurgency situationa and no matter what you do externally it has to constantly adapt.
There is one thing that has to be met. That is endurance. You have to stay there for a LONG LONG time. We are still in KOSOVO... that's not by accident. I don't know where this notion came from that we are going to go over there conquer and come back in 5 days. From the time of invasion it's a minimum 10 year commitment.
Then again this all goes back to the news media thing. Now kids, jsut because CNN portrays the US warfighter as incompetent, weak, immoral, and unable to fight off an "indigent" enemy doesn't mean its true. Reffer back to one of my earlier post and watch the video you would never see on the news in the US. (because they only like to show U.S. GIs getting killed).
And just in response to nancy... Plan A is what we did in the beginning which was topple a nation in the matter of weeks while sustaining 6% to 7% casualties of what was projected. Sounds pretty good to me.
The later adaptive strategy was flawed in that we sent home the entire Iraqi Army. This was a lot of income taken away from families... and now you had unemployed military personnel we can make money by tryign to kill us.
I'm going to try and find a rolling stone (which is a veeeeeerry liberal magazine) article that I think was the best that I've read on Iraq since the invasion.
Additional troops will be sent to Baghdad. AS for the current situation:
Sunday, March 11, 2007; Page B07
A front-page story in The Post last week suggested that the Bush administration has no backup plan in case the surge in Iraq doesn't work. I wonder if The Post and other newspapers have a backup plan in case it does.
Leading journalists have been reporting for some time that the war was hopeless, a fiasco that could not be salvaged by more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy. The conventional wisdom in December held that sending more troops was politically impossible after the antiwar tenor of the midterm elections. It was practically impossible because the extra troops didn't exist. Even if the troops did exist, they could not make a difference.
U.S. soldiers and Iraqi national police officers patrol the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad on Tuesday. (By Maya Alleruzzo -- Associated Press)
There is substantial evidence that the new counterinsurgency strategy, backed by the infusion of new forces, is having a significant effect.
Four months later, the once insurmountable political opposition has been surmounted. The nonexistent troops are flowing into Iraq. And though it is still early and horrible acts of violence continue, there is substantial evidence that the new counterinsurgency strategy, backed by the infusion of new forces, is having a significant effect.
Some observers are reporting the shift. Iraqi bloggers Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, widely respected for their straight talk, say that "early signs are encouraging." The first impact of the "surge," they write, was psychological. Both friends and foes in Iraq had been convinced, in no small part by the American media, that the United States was preparing to pull out. When the opposite occurred, this alone shifted the dynamic.
As the Fadhils report, "Commanders and lieutenants of various militant groups abandoned their positions in Baghdad and in some cases fled the country." The most prominent leader to go into hiding has been Moqtada al-Sadr. His Mahdi Army has been instructed to avoid clashes with American and Iraqi forces, even as coalition forces begin to establish themselves in the once off-limits Sadr City.
Before the arrival of Gen. David Petraeus, the Army's leading counterinsurgency strategist, U.S. forces tended to raid insurgent and terrorist strongholds and then pull back and hand over the areas to Iraqi forces, who failed to hold them. The Fadhils report, "One difference between this and earlier -- failed -- attempts to secure Baghdad is the willingness of the Iraqi and U.S. governments to commit enough resources for enough time to make it work." In the past, bursts of American activity were followed by withdrawal and a return of the insurgents. Now, the plan to secure Baghdad "is becoming stricter and gaining momentum by the day as more troops pour into the city, allowing for a better implementation of the 'clear and hold' strategy." Baghdadis "always want the 'hold' part to materialize, and feel safe when they go out and find the Army and police maintaining their posts -- the bad guys can't intimidate as long as the troops are staying."
A greater sense of confidence produces many benefits. The number of security tips about insurgents that Iraqi civilians provide has jumped sharply. Stores and marketplaces are reopening in Baghdad, increasing the sense of community. People dislocated by sectarian violence are returning to their homes. As a result, "many Baghdadis feel hopeful again about the future, and the fear of civil war is slowly being replaced by optimism that peace might one day return to this city," the Fadhils report. "This change in mood is something huge by itself."
Apparently some American journalists see the difference. NBC's Brian Williams recently reported a dramatic change in Ramadi since his previous visit. The city was safer; the airport more secure. The new American strategy of "getting out, decentralizing, going into the neighborhoods, grabbing a toehold, telling the enemy we're here, start talking to the locals -- that is having an obvious and palpable effect." U.S. soldiers forged agreements with local religious leaders and pushed al-Qaeda back -- a trend other observers have noted in some Sunni-dominated areas. The result, Williams said, is that "the war has changed."
It is no coincidence that as the mood and the reality have shifted, political currents have shifted as well. A national agreement on sharing oil revenue appears on its way to approval. The Interior Ministry has been purged of corrupt officials and of many suspected of torture and brutality. And cracks are appearing in the Shiite governing coalition -- a good sign, given that the rock-solid unity was both the product and cause of growing sectarian violence.
There is still violence, as Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda seek to prove that the surge is not working. However, they are striking at more vulnerable targets in the provinces. Violence is down in Baghdad. As for Sadr and the Mahdi Army, it is possible they may reemerge as a problem later. But trying to wait out the American and Iraqi effort may be hazardous if the public becomes less tolerant of their violence. It could not be comforting to Sadr or al-Qaeda to read in the New York Times that the United States plans to keep higher force levels in Iraq through at least the beginning of 2008. The only good news for them would be if the Bush administration in its infinite wisdom starts to talk again about drawing down forces.
No one is asking American journalists to start emphasizing the "good" news. All they have to do is report what is occurring, though it may conflict with their previous judgments. Some are still selling books based on the premise that the war is lost, end of story. But what if there is a new chapter in the story?
No Plan B? What are they talking about, it's available without a prescription at the pharmacist for anyone over 18.
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