"I think we are winning. Okay? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05
"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.
It's not surprising that the Moonie Times would be giving prominence to this AP story as Bush starts trying to convince us he's implementing an exit strategy: More Iraqi battalions 'in the lead' against rebels By Robert Burns Washington Times 11/29/05. Burns writes:
Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, a spokesman in Baghdad for the U.S. command that is responsible for the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, said approximately 130 Iraqi army and special police battalions are fighting the insurgency, of which about 45 are rated as "in the lead," with varying degrees of reliance on U.S. support.
The exact numbers are classified as secret, but the 45 figure is about five higher than the number given on Nov. 7 at a briefing by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who previously led the training mission. It is about 10 higher than the figure Gen. Petraeus offered at a Pentagon briefing on Oct. 5.
An Iraqi battalion usually numbers between 700 and 800 soldiers.
Larry Johnson looks at Rummy's presentation of this "good news" on Tuesday: Rummy's Flat Earth Society TPM Cafe 11/29/05. He quotes our famous Defense Secretary from back in October 2003. That would be over two years ago:
In less than six months we have gone from zero Iraqis providing security to their country to close to a hundred thousand Iraqis. Indeed, the progress has been so swift that ... it will not be long before [Iraqi security forces] will be the largest and outnumber the U.S. forces, and it shouldn't be too long thereafter that they will outnumber all coalition forces combined.
Johnson does some of the calculations on the current claims:
A division consists of about 15,000 troops. Fifteen times 8 gives us 120,000. A battalion can be as large as 1000 men. So Rummy is claiming that there are 95,000 Iraqi combat troops as well as 120,000? But in 2003 Rummy claimed the Iraqi Army was close to 100,000. Which is it Don? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the Iraqi Army is actually closer to 120,000. Are we to believe that the US has only succeeded in recruiting an additional 20,000 soldiers for the Iraqi Army since October 2003? And the media, by and large, are either too lazy or too stupid to hold Rumsfeld accountable for these delusional moments. I guess, with the holiday parties upon us, they don't want to get disinvited to the White House Christmas Party.
How long must we endure such delusional thinking? Remember, when Rummy made the October 2003 bold prediction the number of American dead was less than 400. Now we are closing in on 2200 and no "light" at the end of this tunnel. Just because Rummy wants a functional Iraqi Army does not make it so.
Yes, this is faith-based leadership. War, the Republican Party way: nothing quite like it.
Johnson also speculates on something that I've seriously wondered: whether Rummy's just getting plain senile:
It is time that the American people demand a Secretary of Defense who is in touch with reality and capable of asking tough questions and hearing unpopular answers. Given Rummy's age we can't rule out dementia. But such a diagnosis is of little comfort to the U.S. soldiers who are being chewed up in the streets and sand of Iraq.
"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05
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