How can anyone (Congress) say the surge won't work, given they have only been there for such a short time?
If by working you mean achieve a military victory over AQ, I have bad news for you. A small temporary surge will not accomplish that. Petreaus put himself in a box Houdini could not escape from when he agreed to report on the success of the surge in September.
Our own military doctrine indicates a long-term surge might work if we had 20-25 soldiers to provide 24/7 security per 1,000 civilian inhabitants. With 27.5 million Iraqis that means we need at least 550,000 troops engaged...or 400,000 more than we have in country.
Petreaus' request for 20,000, later increased to 29,500, more troops was a setup for failure. Already we are winning small areas, but we must leave a force behind to occupy each. And already we are running out of troops to continue the attack into new areas. We`cannot even secure the Green Zone properly. With a population of 6+ million, we need our entire force to secure that one city.
Start listening closely to the words of Colonels, Brigadier and Major Generals in interviews. They are leaking insights. I heard one yesterday say he definitely needs more troops to secure the last 30% of his battle space. I wanted to tell him, "General secure your men, for you will not get any reinforcements. Force protection is everything now, for you will be needed on future battlefields." |
