Below is a post from a Republican blog. The blog refused to print my comment, so I will make it public here and at considerably greater length.
The author of the Republican blog is mad about an editorial in the Star/Tribune (Minneapolis) that was critical of Bush's Iraq policies. Essentially it is a parroting of Republican talking points, so it should be easy to deal with. Emphasis in boldface is mine to separate the issues at hand from the froth.
Strib Continues Assault On Bush
Par Ridder and Susan Albright (and whoever else is left at the financially depleted Star Tribune)once again take up prime space in their Op-Ed pages today to drive home the democrat mantra of "failed strategy" in Iraq.
What used to be a credible local newspaper now can't even claim the character of Congress as the Strib blatantly supports the dem talking points by attacking the surge well in advance of the scheduled reports from military leaders in Iraq. This is nincompoopism at its height. Democrats in Congress supported the plan to increase troops in Iraq with a September report card due from General Patraeus. It's July and every liberal and their sister is calling for a cut and run policy shift sooner than later. You can't have it both ways.
The surge is working. We are turning the corner in Iraq. Al-Qaeda is deperate and knows if the democrats don't win in '08 Al-Qaeda's agenda for the Muslimification of the western world will suffer a great setback.
If Par and Susan have a better idea they should bring it forward for all to see. We're open to suggestions on how to win the war. But they only have carefully crafted political rhetoric aimed at further setting the stain of cowardice that is being put forth by the left.
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Democrats in Congress did not vote for the surge. Nobody voted in support of the surge, because there was no vote taken. What the mixed-up author of the blog, Drew, seems to be referring to is the vote to confirm Petraeus. Yes, Democrats voted to confirm Petraeus. He's a fine officer. Oddly, both the blog author and Bush are trying to make it seem as if the surge was Petraeus' plan. It wasn't. It was Bush's plan, as proposed in a speech given Jan.10. This distortion is being applied to make Petraeus take the fall for the failure of the surge, and to make it seem like Bush was misled by his commander. By the way, the "report card" was Bush's idea. Also, does anyone seriously think that if the surge had somehow been a brilliant success that Republicans would have shared the credit with Democrats? No, just the blame when it all goes sour, apparently.
The text of Bush's Jan. 10 speech in which he proposed the surge
I covered this speech in an earlier post.
Okay, so in this speech Bush lays out an optimistic assessment and an optimistic plan to bring security to Iraq and quell the sectarian killings that were the primary concern at the time. Well, as optimistic as "Grim Bush " got at the time:
"Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue — and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties. The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will."
Sounds like a winner, doesn't it? A close look at the speech shows he is mostly looking for success in Baghdad, but he mentions the 'success' in Anbar. Remember, in Anbar we gave up on the Iraqi military and police and allied ourselves with one armed gang to wipe out another armed gang. Of course, the goal of the surge, as stated by Bush, was to support the Iraqi military in their efforts to stabilise the country. Instead, in Anbar we do an end run around the useless Iraqi military and somehow brag about it. Of course, Anbar only holds about 1% of Iraq's population, so it's unclear how this 'success' is really so significant when looking at the big picture.
In that speech Bush was also confident about the Al-Maliki government regaining control of all the provinces by November.
"To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
How's that working out? Also, the surge was supposed to be primarily Iraqi troops with the U.S. military backing them up when they got into tough spots. Note the mention only of Baghdad, which is one city. Note also that currently the Iraqi military has only six brigades ready to work independently. Three of these are Kurdish, which means that if Turkey actually does cross the border into Kurdistan, half of the Iraqi military will be recalled from Baghdad.
"Now let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations — conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents."
And this is the only mention of using the surge to combat Al-Qaeda, and it clearly specifies Anbar province:
"Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists. America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan — and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq."
Of course, now the plan has changed goals. Since the Iraqi forces never materialised and had been proven to be incompetent and even disloyal to Al-Maliki, Bush started claiming two months ago that the surge was all about clearing Al-Qaeda from Iraq, rather than stabilising the Al-Maliki goverment or disarming the sectarian militias as he originally had proposed. It's also about clearing Al-Qaeda out of Diyala and Baghdad, which wasn't mentioned in this speech.
Now, back to Drew's post. Bush laid out a plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in order to quell sectarian militias in Baghdad and to drive Al-Qaeda out of Anbar in that Jan. 10 speech. Unhappy with his then-current commander for not giving him sufficiently upbeat news, Bush named Petraeus as the man who would lead the surge. The confirmation vote was only to let Petraeus take the post that Bush had already assigned him so that he could execute the mission (the surge) that Bush had already laid out. It was not a vote on the surge at all, since Bush had made it clear that he was the Decider and was in command of the military. In fact, Democrats were deeply sceptical and opposed to the surge.
The first troops were deployed on Feb. 14. By June 3/4 of the total troop force was in place. Still, the murky 'success' in Anbar was the only bright spot to point to. "Wait until the other 1/4 of the troops are there", said the Republicans, as if this would make all of the difference in the world. By June it was clear that this was going to be entirely a American effort, that the Iraqi government was incapable of regaining control of the country, that sectarian militias were not going to be disarmed, and that Al-Qaeda had simply moved to wherever we weren't applying pressure with the surge.
And Republicans still kept pointing to Anbar, six months on, as the major 'success story' of the surge.
This didn't seem like much of a "success" to the public. In fact, it seemed exactly like what we had before the surge was even started.
The answer was for Bush to pretend that the surge had been about Al-Qaeda all along.
Basically he took the 'success' of Anbar, which was already in place before the surge, and claimed that this was due to the surge.
This is how shills like Drew can state:"The surge is working. We are turning the corner in Iraq."
...when actually none of the objectives that Bush promised the surge would achieve have materialised at this point in time. As for this:
Al-Qaeda is deperate and knows if the democrats don't win in '08 Al-Qaeda's agenda for the Muslimification of the western world will suffer a great setback.
My, Drew seems to know a great deal about the schemes, motives, and inner thoughts of Al-Qaeda, doesn't he? Except that Al-Qaeda's stated goal is to get foreign infidel troops out the Middle East, not "muslimify" the Western world. They really don't seem that desperate, either. Wherever the surge concentrates, they leave that spot and move to an area where the surge isn't concentrated. In fact, as everyone who doesn't get their talking points from Bush already knows, the central focus of Al-Qaeda is in the frontier of Pakistan, not Iraq.
So five months on from the surge's start, and five years from the invasion, Iraq is no better of by almost any metric (possibly the undertaker's business has improved). The electicity is on in Baghdad for only three hours a day. The economy is a shambles. Sectarian militias are as strong as before the surge and still manage to torture and kill 300-400 a month. The government of Iraq has only now begun to make extremely feeble moves at political reconciliation. The hospitals are run by a Shia militia who denies care to Sunnis. Al-Maliki is facing a vote of no-confidence. The Iraqi military is still poorly trained and equipped and woefully undermanned. And this 'success' is costing $2 billion a week.
But all we need is another month and a half. All of this will turn around by then, see? And if doesn't, then obviously (to Drew) it will be the Democrat's fault somehow. Or Bush will simply change the definiton of "success" yet again. And as always, the Republican author of the blog under discussion feels that it's "far too early" to say the surge is a failure, but past time to say it's a success.
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