The Pentagon announced yesterday that 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades will begin deploying to Iraq in August as replacements, making it possible to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year.
U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.
"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.
"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," he said in an interview in Baghdad last week. "Are we making progress? If we're not making any progress, we need to change our strategy. If we're making progress, then we need to make a decision on whether we continue to surge."
Before I go into any greater detail, I want to go back to a Jan 11, 2007 MSNBC story on President Bush's announcement of the troop surge:
WASHINGTON - Defying public opinion polls and newly empowered Democratic lawmakers, President Bush told Americans Wednesday that he is dispatching 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. And in a rare admission, he said he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner.
Bush said his new strategy, in which Iraqis will try to take responsibility for security in all 18 provinces by November rather than just three now, “will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings” and other violence.
But he said the increased military presence would help break the cycle of violence gripping Iraq and “hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”
And President Bush specifically gave a benchmark to the Iraqi government on this troop surge. According to the transcript of Bush's surge speech:
To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend 10 billion dollars of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws — and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.
America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks.
The Iraqi government is suppose to "take responsibility for the security in all of Iraq's provinces by November." Those were President Bush's words. Now go back up and re-read the first four paragraphs of the WaPost story. The U.S. generals in Iraq are saying that the Bush troop surge is not working! The benchmarks Bush gave in his troop surge speech was that the Iraqi government would take over security operations in all of Iraq's provinces in November. It is clear that the Iraqi government can not pass this benchmark that was specifically stated by President Bush. The American generals are saying that this troop surge will need to be extended from November 2007 to April 2008. The American generals are saying that the original troop surge plan, proposed by President Bush in January 10, 2007, is not working--it is failing. And since this troop surge is failing, we have to extend the plan well into 2008, and the presidential elections.
That is the story, as reported by the Washington Post. Now for the story behind the story.
First, it is obvious that the Bush troop surge plan is not working. And this is not good for the Bush administration. President Bush needs to keep the Iraq war going until 2009, when he can hand off this entire Iraq mess to his successor, and wash his hands of this entire bloody war. If President Bush can hand the war off to his successor, then Bush can claim he did everything necessary to win the war, and he was not responsible for losing the war--his successor, if a Democratic president, was responsible for losing the war in Iraq. This is all about salvaging President Bush's legacy here. If Bush can keep the war going without benchmarks or timetables into 2008, then he can be reassured that both Iraq will be the overriding issue in the 2008 elections, and that Congress will not pass any legislation for resolving the Iraq war, or withdrawing the troops, until after the November 2008 election--until after George W. Bush leave office in January, 2009. It is the ulterior motive for the Bush administration's continuation of this war. It is also the first thing you need to remember.
The second thing you need to remember is that the political climate in Washington, and the country, has changed. The Democrats are in control of Congress. Congress had already passed a war funding bill, which contained both benchmarks for measuring the success of the Bush troop surge, and withdrawal timetables of U.S. forces if those benchmarks were not achieved. President Bush vetoed the war funding bill, claiming that "Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible...." The President wants a blank war funding check, the Democrats in Congress are willing to fund his war, but with conditions and benchmarks. This is the showdown taking place between the Bush White House and the Democrats in Congress over who controls this war in Iraq. This is far different than the past four years of war funding, where Bush could force a Republican-controlled Congress to rubber-stamp his blank checks. Bush needs to keep his blank check war funding going on for the next two years, otherwise there will be no money to continue the war. So that is one giant headache for the Bush administration. And now to make matters worst, House Democrats are considering a bill to release a limited amount of funds to allow Bush to continue the Iraq war until this July. Congress would then possibly reconsider a bill to release funds to continue the war into September, depending upon whether the Iraqi government has made progress towards reducing the ethnic civil war that is raging inside its borders. Here the Democrats are telling the Bush White House that Bush will get his blank check for war funding, but only until July, or September--depending upon whether the benchmarks for success are achieved. Again, Bush is constrained in that he can't get a blank check to continue the war until 2009.
But there is more change in the political climate within the country. It is the poll numbers--they are showing a sinking Bush presidency. The latest Newsweek poll has President Bush's job approval ratings dropping to 28 percent. You can look at all the sinking Bush job approval ratings here. The poll numbers on Iraq are also showing bad news for Bush, where two-thirds of the American public disapprove of the way Bush is handling the war in Iraq, and where a majority of Americans support some type of withdrawal timetable for U.S. forces in Iraq. President Bush has lost the support of the American people regarding the war in Iraq. This is a disaster for the Republican Party. All of the GOP presidential candidates, except for Representative Ron Paul, support the Bush war in Iraq. And that is a problem here. We have Republican presidential candidates that are supporting the Bush war in Iraq, and Republican congressmen who are being pressured, more than likely by the Bush White House, to continue following the Bush troop surge plan in Iraq, even as the polls are showing that American public opinion has turned against the war and the against the Bush administration's Iraq policy. The longer the Republican Party continues to follow President Bush's Iraq war plan, the greater the exposure of the Republicans being out of touch with the American people on Iraq. This is the danger the Republican congressmen face. They can either support the president, and face the wrath of the American people in 2008, or they can shift their position on the war and hope this will save their political careers at the expense of the Bush White House anger. This is also a problem for the congressional Republicans since George Bush is placing his own presidential legacy ahead of his political party's need to elect both Republican congressmen and a Republican president. In simple terms, the Republican congressmen are caught between a rock and a hard place.
And that is why you're seeing a change in the Bush PR strategy here. This is a delaying tactic here. The delaying tactic is for the American generals to tell Congress--and especially the Republican congressmen--how long it will it take to determine the success of the Bush troop surge. President Bush needs to keep the Republican congressmen in line until the beginning of 2008. The Republicans are worried that Bush declining poll numbers, and the growing American publics' oppostion to the war will cause greater Republican congressional losses, and the loss of the White House in 2008. So in order to save their political skins, more Republican congressmen may end up supporting either the House proposal for limited war funding in July, or even a potential withdrawal timetable in September--one with enough votes that will override a presidential veto. So what we have here is that the Bush administration may be shifting more of the PR strategy of selling the war on the Pentagon, determining how long the surge success will be, rather than having it go through the Bush White House. The bush administration is hoping that both the Republican congressmen, and possibly the American people, will trust the Pentagon in providing the surge assessment, and recommendations for extending the war, rather than having that news come from the White House.
And hopefully allow President Bush to extend his war into January, 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment