More Bush White House game of musical chairs!

This is off the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — President Bush has decided to name Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the top American military commander in Iraq, part of a broad revamping of the military team that will carry out the administration’s new Iraq strategy, administration officials said Thursday.

President George W. Bush has replaced General George Casey, seen here in June 2006, with Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, as the man in charge of all US and coalition forces in Iraq. (AFP/File/Brendan Smialowski)

In addition to the promotion of General Petraeus, who will replace Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the choice to succeed Gen. John P. Abizaid as the head of the Central Command is expected to be Adm. William J. Fallon, who is the top American military officer in the Pacific, officials said.

The changes are being made as the White House is considering an option to increase American combat power in Baghdad by five brigades as well as adding two battalions of reinforcements to the volatile province of Anbar in western Iraq.

President George W. Bush announced the replacement of the top US general in the Middle East, John Abizaid, seen here in 2006, and the senior general in Iraq, George Casey, media reported. Abizaid is being replaced by Adm. William J. Fallon. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Alex Wong)

[....]

Senior administration officials said that the choice of General Petraeus was part of a broader effort to change almost all of the top American officials in Iraq as Mr. Bush changes his strategy there.

“The idea is to put the whole new team in at roughly the same time, and send some clear messages that we are trying a new approach,” a senior administration official said Thursday.

Admiral William J. Fallon (L) and Lt. Gen. David Petraeus (R) in an undated composite image. President Bush is planning to name a new ambassador and military commanders for Iraq as he prepares to make a fresh start on a worsening problem that has mired his administration and threatens his legacy. (PACOM/DOD/Handout/Reuters)

In addition to the military changes, Mr. Bush intends to appoint the ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, as the new United States ambassador to the United Nations, a senior administration official said Thursday.

“It was clearly time to move the players around on the field,” said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Mr. Bush had yet to announce the changes. “This helps the president to make the case that this is a fresh start.”

There are a couple of items to note here. First, Casey was skeptical that a troop surge in Iraq would improve the situation. According to this December 20, 2006 International Herald Tribune story:

[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates said his talks with General George Casey Jr., the top ground commander in Iraq, and General John Abizaid, the top U.S. general for the Middle East, had included discussion of "the possibility of a surge and the potential for what it might accomplish."

But at a news conference with Gates standing next to him, Casey indicated he wanted to see a more thorough plan for how the additional troops would be used before he would endorse the idea.

"Additional troops have to be for a purpose," he said. "I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but what I want to see happen is, if we do bring more American troops here, they help us progress toward our strategic objectives."

My guess here is that Casey was open to a surge of American troops who would provide training for the Iraqi security forces. Once the training was completed, then the U.S. could start withdrawing its forces while having the Iraqi security forces police the country. However, the Bush White House decided to go the opposite direction of increasing American forces to provide security in Iraq. Casey became a liability to the Bush administration since he was not a "yes man" regarding the Bush strategy for the war. Consider this January 2, 2007 New York Times story:

President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.

The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.

In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan.

This left the president and his advisers constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground.

Over the past 12 months, as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy. And now, as the image of Saddam Hussein at the gallows recedes, Mr. Bush seems all but certain not only to reverse the strategy that General Casey championed, but also to accelerate the general’s departure from Iraq, according to senior military officials.

General Casey repeatedly argued that his plan offered the best prospect for reducing the perception that the United States remained an occupier — and it was a path he thought matched Mr. Bush’s wishes. Earlier in the year, it had.

But as Baghdad spun further out of control, some of the president’s advisers now say, Mr. Bush grew concerned that General Casey, among others, had become more fixated on withdrawal than victory.

Now, having ousted Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush sees a chance to bring in a new commander as he announces a new strategy, senior military officials say. General Casey was scheduled to shift out of Iraq in the summer. But now it appears that it may happen in February or March.

By mid-September, Mr. Bush was disappointed with the results in Iraq and signed off on a complete review of Iraq strategy — a review centered in Washington, not in Baghdad. Whatever form the new strategy takes, it seems almost certain to include a “surge” in forces, something that General Casey insisted earlier this year he did not need and which might even be counterproductive.

In a telephone interview on Friday, General Casey continued to caution against a lengthy expansion in the American military role. “The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq’s security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias,” he said. “And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all of Iraq’s problems, which are at base their problems.”

Casey became a critic of the Bush administration's war strategy. Therefore, Casey had to go.

Gen. John P. Abizaid was also a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy, but on a different level. In this August 3, 2006 New York Times story, Abizaid told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the sectarian violence in Iraq was causing the country to head towards a civil war:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — The commander of American forces in the Middle East bluntly warned a Senate committee on Thursday that sectarian violence in Iraq, especially in the capital, Baghdad, had grown so severe that the nation could slide toward civil war.

he commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, also acknowledged that since the security situation remained so unstable, significant reductions in American forces were unlikely before the end of this year.

Asked by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, whether Iraq risked falling into civil war, General Abizaid replied, “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”

In March, General Abizaid told the Senate Appropriations Committee that sectarian violence in Iraq was replacing the insurgency as the greatest threat to security and stability.

Now back in August of 2006, the Bush White House has been refusing to call Iraq a civil war--a complete contradiction to what the generals are saying. According to this August 3, 2006 ABC News story:

[President] Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have steadfastly refused to call the situation in Iraq a civil war, although Rumsfeld at a news conference on Wednesday acknowledged that the violence is increasing.

I'm starting to wonder if we're seeing the opening details of a massive Bush administration CYA plan for Iraq. The Bush administration has got to know now that the war in going in their favor. The Republicans lost control of Congress because of Iraq. The American people have turned against this war--according to the latest January 4, 2007 CBS News poll, an incredible 76 percent of the American public believe that President Bush even has a plan for Iraq, 72 percent of the American public disapprove of Bush's handling of the Iraq war, and President Bush's job approval rating is at 30 percent, with 63 percent of Americans disapproving of his performance. Bush may also be looking ahead as to what his legacy will be with history--especially considering how the Iraq war is descending further into chaos and disaster. What we could be seeing here is the start of a major CYA plan by the Bush White House. First, someone in the administration probably leaked the story of a proposed troop surge in Iraq, with the sacrifice theme, to both prepare the American people for President Bush's announcement to escalate this war, and perhaps to steal a little thunder from the Democrats opening day in Congress. Next we have this week's game of White House musical chairs—John Negroponte moving from intelligence czar to State, Harriet Miers resigning as White House counsel, and this sudden removal of both Generals Casey and Abizaid. Negroponte and Miers musical chairs may have been the result of protecting the Bush White House from the impending Democratic congressional investigations. The sacking of Casey and Abizaid was necessary to stifle any criticism of the Bush administration's war, and to replace those two with simple "yes men" generals to follow Bush. President Bush will outline his new plan for escalating the Iraq war during his State of the Union address--complete with sappy talk of sacrifice. And more Americans will be sent to their deaths in Iraq.

All of this is being played out to keep the U.S. in Iraq until Bush's second term ends. The new president will be stuck with cleaning up this mess, allowing Bush to claim that he didn't lose the war in Iraq. This CYA strategy also plays into the hands of the PNAC neocons still in the Bush White House. The PNAC neocons can still maintain the permanent U.S. bases in Iraq for the next two years, or perhaps longer--depending upon the 2008 president and still control the oil reserves in Iraq. It is all about control--control of Iraq, the war, the oil resources, the permanent bases, and especially time--time for George Bush to leave the White House and thrust the stinking pile of crap that is this Iraq war, into the hands of his 2008 successor. Any deviation from this strategy of control could force this administration to collapse upon its own incompetence and failures.