FPIF Commentary |
Bush to Iraq: More War
Col. Daniel Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.) | January 5, 2007
Editor: John Feffer, IRC
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In his popular weekly radio and subsequent television quiz show, “You Bet Your Life,” Groucho Marx featured the “magic word.” If a contestant happened to utter it during the course of the show, he or she would instantly receive $25 or $50 or some other, inflation-adjusted amount.
Next week, President Bush will do something similar when he addresses the U.S. public and the world on his plan for “victory”—his magic word—in Iraq. He will also officially trot out another magic word, one to replace the not-so-magic phrase of “stay the course.”
Groucho was a straight-shooting comedian who never leaked the magic word to a contestant. In contrast, Bush's new magic word has been so widely leaked that it's hard to imagine that anyone in the country hasn't heard it. And there's another difference. Groucho told contestants the amount of dollars they could win. But Bush will not be able to tell the public what it will cost in lives and national treasure to implement his new strategy.
That strategy is wrapped up in Bush's magic word: “surge.” Or maybe, given the long-range heavy artillery that the 3rd Infantry Division troops are bringing for the first time to Iraq later this month, the magic word should be shouted: SURGE.
Either way, the dictionary defines “surge” as a sudden, abrupt, strong increase. Water surges in waves, mobs surge suddenly, and emotions surge unexpectedly. Most often, “surge” denotes a process, a flow of energy that crests and then falls off, eventually returning to a steady state.
Bush is expected to call for a “sharp” increase—30,000 to 40,000 troops—in the current 142,000-strong U.S. military presence in Iraq. Half to three-fourths of the increase will go to Baghdad to “stabilize” security in the Iraqi capital.
The source of the troops for this “surge” remains unclear. Many suspect that Bush will do with regard to soldiers what his administration has been doing with money already appropriated for Iraq: trying an end run around policies, laws, and even the Constitution to get what he wants. So far, the fighting has been paid for largely through “supplemental” spending bills in response to an “emergency” that requires a rapid (surge) response with no time for judicious “unsurged” evaluation.
For his expected announcement, Bush may simply declare that an “emergency” continues to exist in Iraq. Such an emergency would require the Pentagon to temporarily suspend its guidelines on the length of tours of duty in Iraq (currently seven months for Marines and 12 months for army soldiers). The administration would then reduce the interval between tours for both active and reserve components, remove the cap on cumulative months in combat for reserve components, impose “stop-loss” actions that involuntarily keep men and women in uniform, or some combination of the above.
Also unclear is the time span for this “people surge.” Commentators talk of 12 to 18 or even 24 months. Even the briefest of these periods can hardly be regarded as sudden or unexpected or of short duration, and thus would not fit the definition of surge. The current dismal state of affairs has been apparent for some time; it is no surprise. Bush will undoubtedly try to make the case that more troops, more treasure, and just a little more time thrown into Iraq now will prove the proverbial “turning point.” He will call for “one final surge” that will enable the United States to claim “victory”—the ultimate magic word—and turn over to the Iraqi people a country able to defend itself, govern itself, and care for its people.
Undue delay—that is, substantive congressional consideration—will be labeled obstructionist, and defeatist. The administration might even accuse opponents of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Congress needs to act as a surge suppressor and carefully look at what Bush as commander-in-chief threatens to decree. While it is true that the United States cannot have 535 commanders-in-chief, it is equally true that Congress has an obligation to the U.S. public and to those wearing military uniforms to restrain the executive branch from costly misadventures—especially war and, most especially, wars of executive choice like Iraq.
If Bush wants to surge in Iraq, he should work out how to surge job opportunities for Iraqis rather than for U.S. and other foreign contractors. He needs to surge electricity production and distribution to cities, villages, and homes. “More (Electric) Power to the People”—now those would be magic words for Iraqis and Americans alike. And certainly better than “More (Fire) Power Against the People.”
Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Email at dan@fcnl.org or blog “The Quakers' Colonel.”
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Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). Copyright © 2008, Institute for Policy Studies.
Recommended citation:
Col. Daniel Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.), "Bush to Iraq: More War" (Silver City, NM and Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, January 5, 2007).
Web location:
http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3876
Production Information:
Author(s): Col. Daniel Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.)
Editor(s): John Feffer, IRC
Production: Chellee Chase-Saiz, IRC |
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| Name: |
Nicolas Aguilar Montero |
Date: Jan 09, 2007 |
Estimados Señores:
Estados Unidos debe preocuparse en recuperar su Economia que esta por llevar al Colapso del Sistema Financiero Mundial con su Emisiòn Inorganica de Dolares, a lo mejor sigue creyendo que le van ha aceptar sus Dolares para seguir creando problemas al mundo, Creò que es hora de que se siente a pensar lo acontesido.
Atentamente
Nicolàs Aguilar Montero |
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| Name: |
Daniel E. Teodoru |
Date: Jan 09, 2007 |
| Bush's new Iraq solution reminds me of the story about a Brooklyn family that got all the members to pitch in to buy a truck. They drove the truck to Florida in that Summer and filled it with watermelons which they bought at $5 each. Then they drove it back to Brooklyn and sold the watermelons in the street at $3 each. Business was fantastic! But after two months of repeated trips they realized that they were not making any money. Soon they began to quarrel, accusing each other of stealing the profits. Finally, to settle matters, they called a massive family council. After hours of debate, the family patriarch rose and called for quiet; He had found a solution: "We gotta get a bigger truck!"
GW Bush has sold short every American investment in blood and treasure made in Iraq so that now we are in severe deficit. To cover up his administration's criminal negligence and malpractice he lied us into a state of total confusion. Finally, as Jack Vallenti once said about popular support for the Vietnam War: "People grow tired of a confusion whose end they cannot see." The recent election proves that point. But not for Bush; his signings that shred the Bill of Rights prove that the "What, me worry?" kid is both dumb and nasty.
There is only one solution: (a) people must take to the street to "in your face" with the horror of this war the mass of Americans who suffer from the "ain't my kid going to Iraq" disconnect syndrome and (b) a Congressional move to impeach and remove first Cheney for evil and corruption and then Bush for incompetence and criminal negligence. Even if this is achieved on the last day they are in office it would be good because it would send a message that these United States of America will no longer tolerate an irresponsible moron with an ego the size of a hot air balloon, surrounded by totally evil and corrupt loyalists.
Every Americans who deems him/herself patriotic must see every man/woman in uniform as HIS/HER child and must not allow to be done with these children what he/she would not allow to be done with his/her biologic children. So hit the streets now that Bush proved deaf to our ballots and march for an end to leadership that just follows its gut. You don't have to be a biologist to know what you get at the end of your gut! |
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| Name: |
Robert Roth |
Date: Jan 09, 2007 |
The discussion is remaining all too restrained, considering the increasingly disturbing situation. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. suggested in 2003 that the Bush administration was replete with psychopathic personalities, for whom self and deciveness are all, and harm that may be caused to others is simply irrelevant. It seems to me Mr. Bush is providing strong evidence in support of Vonnegut's idea. This is deeply troubling, as it suggests even more dangerous and damaging steps may be given serious consideration or even taken--such as use of nuclear weapons--regardless of the consequences. At the very least, Mr. Bush is showing complete disdain for democracy at home, while claiming to value its export to other countries. In the national interest, the Congress should impeach both the President and the Vice President. The grounds for impeaching Mr. Bush are perhaps most powerfully presented in the aptly titled book, "The Impeachment of George W. Bush," by former Congressoman Elizabeth Holtzman.
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| Name: |
de teodoru |
Date: May 07, 2007 |
| Nassir al-Rubaie, Sadr's parliamentary bloc leader announced that: "We deem it necessary to issue an order to the Sadr bloc ministers to withdraw
immediately from the Iraq government." The purpose he also made clear, saying, "We demand a timetable for the withdrawal of [US] occupation forces. This is an essential topic for us. The government should have a
stance towards this matter." But Sadr's bloc, in a typical act of absurd ambiguity, remains in the Parliament to participate in hollow legislation.
It is worth recalling that over a year ago, PM Maliki had proposed a 26-points policy that included universal amnesty and a withdrawal date for all
foreign troops from Iraq. President Bush nixed these two proposal then, totally destroying Maliki's legitimacy as Iraq's leader. So now, Maliki insisting that, "We see no need for a [US] withdrawal timetable because we are working as fast as we can. We feel what will govern the departure of international forces are the achievements and victories we manage to obtain on the ground, not a time table," is on the same trajectory as was acting-PM Allawi and may well end up similarly totally lacking in popular support. The reason is that long ago, the middle of the night behavior of door-smashing Americans has, as so well demonstrated in INSURGENCY AND COUNTERINSURGENCY IN IRAQ by Ahmed S. Hashim, an Arab-American officer who
fought in Iraq for over a year, altered their image from "liberators" to "occupiers."
Bush has allowed Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld to operate in Iraq intelligence blind for so long that US troops attacked aggressively more in self-defense against suicide-bombers and IEDs, hoping to catch the Resistance at night in bed before the morning carnage, that most Iraqis now feel indiscriminately humiliated and vengeful toward US troops, rather than
appreciative of their protective presence.
That is the central issue: Iraqis no longer believe that US forces are there only to protect them, given what a poor job they did doing at it. Instead, they attribute American perseverance to self-interest. Otherwise, many say, how else could one explain the continued acceptance of US manpower and equipment losses in the face of an elusive enemy that devastates at will?
For Iraqi politicians, a Saigon deja-vu is obvious: the Americans need us more than we need them....they will never leave because they can't leave...their self-interests that brought them here are too great for them to pull-out. This assumption that America cannot afford to leave, no matter what happens, convinces the politicians that political office in
Iraq has no future under self-determination but is a momentary bonanza to get rich quick and then get out as the Americans bleed to death. Thus there is no basis for Iraqi, as was the case with South Vietnamese
politicians, to think positively of a free and independent Iraq, nor to think negatively of US troops abandoning Iraq. Constrained between a maximal roof and a minimal floor, they work to steal everything in
between. Meanwhile, totally unprotected, Iraq's middle and professional classes migrated out as did much of South Vietnam's. This makes Iraq, like was the Republic of Vietnam, a sink hole for US blood and treasure.
Though much water has passed under the bridge, most of it bloody, now, a date certain for US withdrawal that is within a year or so, but a date certain, will make Iraqis appreciate that there is a time limit before
the roof caves in; yet, it is long enough for them to shore it up through national reconciliation.
Mr. Bush seeks the deceive the American public into rejecting a date set for withdrawal by equating it with catastrophic sudden "cut-and-run." Fearing to attach the inevitable prognosis to its brilliant diagnosis, the Baker-Hamilton Commission collapsed into oblivion by calling merely for a change in policy. Opportunistically, Gen. Petraeus payed for another star on his collar by pretending that his change in tactics would substitute for a change in policy. Newly in power, the Democrat Congress, in a
moment of fearful confusion, capitulated to his superficial nonsense and self-contradictory "counter-insurgency" pontifications, declaring him the
"right man for the job." By the time Congress regained its courage and called for a withdrawal date, the Bush Administration asked how could Congress vote Petraeus into his job and them refuse to allow him to do it?
So long as hundreds of Iraqis died as a result of Petraeus's "intel blind" helplessness in the face of suicide bombers and IEDs, most Americans maintained their "disconnect syndrome." But now alQaeda, needing to outdo Iran's humiliation of Britain (unlike the US press, the terrorists know that there was a quid pro quo), has decided to target US troops suffering the status of intel blind "sitting ducks." As a result of Petraeus's total lack of savvy, US troops are dying by the dozens each week. Insurgent body counts mean nothing because the number of willing shahids is as good as limitless. American retaliation against Sadr's Mahdi Army only feeds the polarization into factions. As Robert Fisk so ably analyzed it, US strategy sums up to divide and conquer: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2439530.ece
A case could be made-- and many Iraqis do-- for US responsibility for the current inter-Iraqi ethnic cleansing; and no doubt, many academics such as Juan Cole had the foresight to see it coming. It is in such a perspective that one should read Edward Wong's brilliant analysis of Sadr:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/weekinreview/22wong.html?ref=weekinreview&pagewanted=print
Bush's tactical meanderings have seemingly maintained one consistency: attempts to destroy the political force that has consistently been most nationalistic, least secular and most willing to suffer whittling down of its criminal elements at the hands of the Maliki Government and US forces: Sadr.
Now, Bush's humble acceptance of a Congressionally demanded date certain for US troops withdrawal would: a) make obvious that the US has no dominance end goal in Iraq; b) make obvious that if the Iraqi factions fail to submit to a political process, they will join Saddam in the judgment of history; c) establish that the US force cannot be held hostage
in Iraq indefinitely, its regional options constricted, much as had its Vietnam policy; d) the alQaeda claim that the US is maintaining corrupt governments in power through force would lose its validity; e) American foreign policy, by drawing in its tentacles, would now be credible once again as a deterrent force with tentacles it can project outward.
Just as Bush 41's plea to the Japanese to help America's economy climb out of a hole fell of Japanese deaf ears, Bush 43's call for international help in the war against terror falls on global deaf ears. Hubris never begets friendship. Instead, it exposes weakness to determined vengeful foes and victims.
A date certain for withdrawal would, above all else, make clear to all Iraqis that absurd ambiguities, such as those laid out by Wong, lead to catastrophe. A date certain for withdrawal would tell the world that we are indeed HELPING rather than LEADING Iraq's government into the future. It would be a reset button that takes us from "occupiers" back to the
"liberators" we were in March 2003. It is, in fact, the only strategy in town. Everything else ricocheting around Washington DC is tactical evasion of an end game. That can only reflect back as absurd ambiguities on the part of Iraqis.
Daniel E. Teodoru
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