"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.
I'm going through my weekly read for some of my favorite columnists. I see Jules Witcover states the obvious about this week's high-level suggestions that large numbers of American troops will be pulled out of Iraq next year: Mixed signals on bringing troops home Baltimore Sun 07/29/05.
It's sad that our press corps has deteriorated to the point where an analysis like this seems exceptional - not to take anything away from Witcover for making it:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in Baghdad the other day, said again that the Bush administration would not set a timetable for troop withdrawal. Instead, he pressed Mr. al-Jaafari on meeting an October deadline for a referendum on a new constitution that would allow national elections in December.
At the same time, however, the U.S. troop commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., volunteered an optimistic outlook for "some fairly substantial reductions after these elections in the spring and summer" if training of Iraqi security forces "continues to go as it is going." General Casey argued that "the level of attacks they've [the insurgents] been able to generate has not increased substantially" over the previous year.
It's hard to square this rosy scenario with the observation to Congress this month of Marine Gen. Peter Pace, soon to becomechairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said only "a small number of Iraqi security forces are taking on the insurgents and terrorists by themselves," a third are ready to do so with coalition help, and the rest are only "partially capable."
Mr. al-Jaafari, at a news conference with Secretary Rumsfeld, seemed to be supporting an early withdrawal. "The great desire of the Iraqi people is to see the coalition forces be on their way out as they take more responsibility," he said.
But then he added: "The withdrawal should be whenever the Iraqi forces are ready to stand up." ...
General Casey's conditional prospect of some reduction in the 138,000 U.S. troop level and Mr. Rumsfeld's refusal to set a timetable send mixed signals - but hardly the only ones in this war of controversial decision-making.
It seems that the Iraq War is at a place now where military and foreign policy professionals that were and are involved are concentrating on their alibis for failure. I mean, as distinct from alibis they may have to present in court.
As James Wolcott wrote on his blog last weekend (Sunday Bloody Sunday 07/24/05):
I'm going to type this very slowly and simply so that the Couch Potato Pattons can understand what I'm saying, even though I don't expect them to accept it.
What's rising in Iraq is the spectre of American defeat and Iraqi chaos. We're are past the point when you could counter every article of which you disapprove by summoning Austin Bayfrom the bullpen for a positive spin, or seeking shelter in Winston Churchill's lion shadow, or being warned over and over that "failure is not an option" (yes, it is). We are past the point of listening to Joe Biden and others say we need more troops on the ground and more international cooperation. Neither cavalry is riding over the hill.
Where the warbloggers are actively denying the spectre of defeat, the political talkshows are passively denying it. Today - Sunday - it was all about the Supreme Court nominee and the Plame leak and not much else. Understandable. But at what point will attention be paid to the full enormity of what's unraveling in Iraq? Or will it be like global warming, which Russert, Stephanopolous, Chris Wallace, and the rest ignore altogether, as if waiting for heatstroke deaths to dot the capital lawns before acknowledging something momentous is happening. They're still waiting for the memo that'll verify what any fool can see.
"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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