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Reports

Forget About the ‘Surge’

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Posted on Sep 10, 2007

By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

WASHINGTON—Even before Gen. David Petraeus began his account of the “substantial” progress brought about by the troop increase in Iraq, congressional critics of President Bush’s policy had come to the depressing conclusion that the “surge” has done what the administration needed it to do.

    It has not won the war. It has not achieved reconciliation at the national level in Iraq. But it has bought more political time in Washington, bringing Bush closer than ever to reaching one of his main objectives: keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq beyond Election Day 2008.

    Yet if the testimony of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker was the central act at Monday’s House hearing, Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, signaled within minutes of opening the session the one hope that critics of the war have to force a change in course.

    Their goal, Skelton made clear, was to move away from a narrow argument over whether the surge has succeeded or failed—the subject on which Petraeus, in a clear and steady voice, offered a small mountain of statistics—to a broader debate about “the overall security of this nation.”

    The issue, Skelton insisted, is whether “Iraq is the war worth the risk of breaking our Army and being unable to deal with other risks to our nation.” Thus did the Missouri Democrat issue an indirect plea that those inside the Pentagon who are skeptical of a lengthy engagement in Iraq make their views known. Facing the Petraeus challenge, congressional Democrats are discovering that other generals may be their strongest allies. 

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    The debate about the surge has, in large part, been the foreign policy equivalent of a Republican primary. Bush needed to make enough of a case for progress that he could prevent the defection of significant numbers of Republicans from his approach.

    Through a hard sell of the surge in the last six weeks, Bush has held most of his party in line. Petraeus’ central political objective was more to reassure Republicans than to persuade Democrats. Given the president’s veto power and the Democrats’ slim majorities in the House and Senate, this may be enough to keep American troops heavily committed in Iraq for the rest of Bush’s term.

    Privately, Democrats acknowledged that they had expected opposition to the war to grow more than it did this summer. “There was some momentum building up in June and July to change the policy,” said a senior Democratic congressional staff member. “But that’s abated. I certainly thought ... that September would look like a change month, but now it looks less so.”

    Moreover, while Petraeus highlighted the possibility of bringing down troop numbers to “pre-surge levels” by “next summer,” this itself was an admission that the administration’s policy depends upon a continued large presence of American forces. “It looks like Bush will leave office with 100,000 or more troops in Iraq,” said the senior congressional aide, “and the next president will be stuck with this mess.”

    Oddly, Bush’s intransigence has caused more problems for Democrats than Republicans. The inability of the new Democratic majority to muster the votes to cut off funds for the war has left the party’s large anti-war constituency furious—even as moderate Democrats push for compromise measures that could get Republicans on record as opposing the president.

    That is why Skelton’s opening statement was so important. Only a handful of Republicans are prepared to take on the president directly, but many more might be persuaded to vote for restrictions on deployments in response to what Skelton called “the issue of readiness.”

    When Skelton said that “with so many troops in Iraq, I think our response to an unexpected threat would come at a devastating cost,” he offered a direct challenge to the administration: if withdrawing troops from Iraq is dangerous, failing to withdraw them may, in the long run, be even more dangerous.

    Politically, said the senior congressional aide, Bush has pacified two of the three constituencies he needed to quiet if he was to continue with his policy—Republicans in Congress and the leading Republican presidential candidates.

    But efforts to keep the surge going worry many top commanders at the Pentagon who share Skelton’s alarm over the impact of lengthy tours on the preparedness of the armed forces. Democrats once thought that Republicans would help them end the war. Hidden in plain sight on Monday is the news that Democrats are now hoping that concerned generals will support their case, even if most Republicans won’t.
   
    E.J. Dionne’s e-mail address is postchat(at)aol.com.

    © 2007, Washington Post Writers Group


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GodSend's avatar

By GodSend, September 15, 2007 at 2:49 pm Link to this comment

Zionists have poisoned the rivers and air of America for many years in their blind and relentless pursuit of profit. They have infected the minds and hearts of it’s people with greed and materialism and enticed them to surrender their God, moral values and consciences. Americans have been deceived by the Devil and his demons. They must return to their God, ask for forgiveness and for Divine intervention to help them save their souls, if not their country!

Amen.

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By TAO Walker, September 13, 2007 at 8:38 am Link to this comment

SamSnedegar (#99747) and felicity (#99794) are onto something in their observations here.  A people unable, and/or unwilling, to address and define their “situation” accurately, honestly, and coherently hasn’t a chance in hell of responding to its problematic aspects effectively.  Yet, when even the supposed “progressives” parrot the “war” propaganda of what is in fact a mass-murderous attempt to steal the world’s second largest known oil reserves (and that is only for-starters), it’s not at all surprising that your average run-of-the-mill american doesn’t seem to know, in the pithy words of this old Heathen Savage’s mother, “....whether to shit or go blind.”

How much of this virtual tsunami of disinformation is by malicious design, how much is due to laziness or ignorance or outright stupidity, makes no real difference in the outcomes and consequences.  These are uniformly degrading, and perhaps irreversibly degenerative.

Unless and until theamericanpeople muster the courage to confront the serious flaws in their “national” character, gain the clarity of mind to face-up to the grievous ills wrought on-account of those flaws, and find the “stomach” to undertake the substantial sacrifices necessary to making-good on all that vandalism, they are, as 911truthdotorg (#100108, “The General Lies”) suggests, “....doomed.”  Does it reach the dignified level of “tragedy” even, that these poor saps are not going to hear these hard truths on “the nightly news” or in their classrooms or from their pulpits or their privately-owned “public servants”?

From here in Indian Country it looks like theamericans are going to be the first people ever to fall into a “bed of roses,” and get up smelling like shit.

HokaHey!

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By Keith, September 12, 2007 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment

What are you talking about? Everyone and their mother has proven this war was a mistake. The amazing thing is the Bush told his sheep he was going to invade while campaigning in 2000. Wolfy indicated that the “WMD story” was the only thing they could think of that would get legitimate support for the war.

I don’t know why it is so hard for Repukes to admit the were lied to by Bush about Iraq and other issues. Iraq cannot be won militarily and that’s a fact. You keep hearing this story about it will take time but the improvements you heard in 2004 still haven’t happened. Pull the tubes from your necks Republicans.

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By sophrosyne, September 12, 2007 at 11:47 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Democrats have consistently failed to make the obvious case that iraq was a needless war that has not made us safer at all.  It has exposed the country to great harm and the damage to our self interest and security will last through the rest of this century.  America is in decline and is on a steep downward slope. 

Democrats have the same paymasters as the Republicans so don’t expect much from them.  Just open your eyes and look beyond the Congressional and media charades.

By the way, why is Reagan considered to be a “great” presiden?  He was a perfectly horrid president. Somehow, no one dares challenge his record which is horrible in almost every respect.

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By Steve, September 12, 2007 at 9:22 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

All the surge did was to put more ducks on the pond for the insurgents to shoot at. They obviously prefer to fight us over there rather than here.

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By peedeecee, September 11, 2007 at 3:46 pm Link to this comment

From the Dionne piece:

Privately, Democrats acknowledged that they had expected opposition to the war to grow more than it did this summer. “There was some momentum building up in June and July to change the policy,” said a senior Democratic congressional staff member. “But that’s abated. I certainly thought ... that September would look like a change month, but now it looks less so.”

No kidding. Maybe if the Democrats hadn’t been so spineless, maybe if they hadn’t caved in to Bush, maybe if they had cut off funding and stuck to it, maybe if they had pushed on bringing the troops home…perhaps then the public wouldn’t have gotten discouraged, and opposition would have continued to grow.

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By JEP, September 11, 2007 at 2:04 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

And we sould leave swiftly if we had the will to do it…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102371.html

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GodSend's avatar

By GodSend, September 11, 2007 at 11:57 am Link to this comment

Bush’s ‘Surge’ is more aptly described as his “Urge’ (for sacrificial blood)! - dedicated to his god, Satan!

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By THOMAS BILLIS, September 11, 2007 at 9:31 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Boy Crocker and Petaeus are good.The only thing missing was was an Ethel Merman impersonator singing “Everything Is Coming Up Roses”.It truly was a case of who are you going to believe me or your lying eyes.
E.J. leadership, which the democrats are woefully short of ,is taking a position and bringing people on to your side.Majorities in the United States and majorities in Iraq want us out.This President is at 30% approval rate and the democrats act as if the numbers are reversed.Sure it would be great if the Generals started coming out against the war but if that were necessary we would still be in Vietnam.It is leadership and true patriotism that are missing from the democrats.They should stop thinking about what is good for the elective chances in 08 and start thinking about what is good for this country now.

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By felicity, September 11, 2007 at 9:25 am Link to this comment

War?  Not a war.  Surge?  Not a surge.  Iraqi government?  No government, anarchy.

A surge is a wave, a billow, a rush, a torrent, so what’s a surge that lasts for years?  It isn’t a surge.

Maybe these erudite idiots would be closer to solving the ‘problem’ of Iraq, if they began by correcting their terminologies.

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By Don Stivers, September 11, 2007 at 8:42 am Link to this comment

We are staying in Iraq because of Bush’s EGO.  He wants to be a tough bad ass.  That is not to be when he flies into, unannounced, a well fortified airbase.  If things were going so well he would have strutted his stuff in the streets of Baghdad where the likes of other politicians walk around in flack jackets and helmets within a big crowd of military men to protect them.

This is about the pride and “I told you so” ego of being a WAR president.  He will let the administration who follows him become the looser.  Well, he already lost this illegal war.

It is his EGO and nothing else.

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By SamSnedegar, September 11, 2007 at 4:08 am Link to this comment

sorry, but unless and until you start a dialog about why we are in Iraq in the first place, and why we have to stay there, you won’t be talking any more sense than the Bushitter gang of thugs.

oil, oil, oil are the three reasons we fight in Iraq, stay in Iraq, and lie about Iraq.

why a dialog? because stealing oil and murdering innocent people might be the only way to do this thing without a monster depression soon in the USA, and we can’t have that, can we? Think of all the babies who would starve if Uncle Sugar goes belly up, so killing a few million innocent Iraqis and telling a few lies might not be as bad as turning all those soldiers loose to rape and pillage our own country when we can’t pay their wages or feed them.

Hobson’s choice; there is no good way out of this dilemma, which incidentally got started with the Reagan gang of thugs and has now resulted in a nine trillion dollar unpayable debt, a job market that is based on disaster clean up, an unmanageable negative trade balance, and virtually no national wealth on which to base our currency.

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By HopeSpringsATurtle, September 11, 2007 at 3:33 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

A curious conflation of utter incompetence and brilliant strategy gives us the Bush administration. With the war/occupation continuing in a downward spiral, Dubya wants to hand this loser to the next president. Since it seems we may have a democrat, the GOP gets to scapegoat the dems—again.

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Outraged's avatar

By Outraged, September 10, 2007 at 11:38 pm Link to this comment

Quote: “When Skelton said that “with so many troops in Iraq, I think our response to an unexpected threat would come at a devastating cost,” he offered a direct challenge to the administration: if withdrawing troops from Iraq is dangerous, failing to withdraw them may, in the long run, be even more dangerous.”
————————————
I think that those in Washington and other “power elites” know this, in fact, it’s part of the plan.  You know, “we were just trying to right our wrong in Iraq, but then….well…you see…America’s security was jeopardized “inadvertantly”.  I believe the mantra will be something to that effect.  Unless we get the whole criminal cartel out…NOW.  The poor good-hearted neocons, always trying so hard to do the “right” thing, they’re just misunderstood is all.  Poor babies…....

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