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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (217573)	8/29/2007 4:24:10 AM
From: unclewest	Respond to of 793919

I think it goes back to the whole planning by Centcom in '02. Remember when we posted here about "where are the MP units?" They were clueless about the problems with taking over. It was done more in the spirit of "go in, stomp them, and leave immediately." They forgot the leave part. Yes, I do remember that. It was a key point you made several times and you were right. It was stupid to take down every security structure Iraq had, not replace it, and not expect lawlessness to ensue. The only American 4-star who had the moral courage to state our doctrine called for 550,000 troops to do Iraq right was then Chief of Staff of the Army, General Shinseki. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz immediately went public disagreeing with him and forced him to retire. Let's not forget old Wolfie. As former acting and deputy SECDEF, he too deserves much credit for our dilemma. At the end of last year, Abizaid finally admitted publicly that Shinseki's estimate was correct. But Abizaid did not have the cajones to say that to win a military victory we still need that number of troops. The single biggest obstacle Iraq faces now is establishing an effective government. They have much work to do to accomplish that. The single biggest obstacle we face now is time. We are running out of time. Iraq's needs and the dwindling grains of sand in our hour glass are on a collision course. The surge (phase one) won't prevent the wreck. Phase two begins after the surge and I'm not convinced we can pull it off successfully if only because we have so few troops. We failed the last time we tried to get past phase two. We had Phoenix, Delta, Omega, Sigma, SOG, and PRU killing insurgents everyday for ten years in Nam. The reported killing of some insurgents during the current surge does not impress me. I know it is not enough to garner a military victory. The only quick way out I see is for the Iraqi government to stand up and get on with managing the country and they must do that now. I have serious doubts they can do that fast enough to keep the war from expanding.