Surge off to bad start; Petraeus may not make difference
"A growing number of Iraqis blamed the United States on Sunday for creating conditions that led to the worst single suicide bombing in the war, which devastated a Shiite market in Baghdad the day before. They argued that the Americans had been slow in completing the vaunted new American security plan, making Shiite neighborhoods much more vulnerable to such horrific attacks.
. . . In advance of the plan, which would flood Baghdad with thousands of new American and Iraqi troops, many Mahdi Army checkpoints were dismantled and its leaders were either in hiding or under arrest, which was one of the plan’s intended goals to reduce sectarian fighting. But with no immediate influx of new security forces to fill the void, Shiites say, Sunni militants and other anti-Shiite forces have been emboldened to plot the type of attack that obliterated the bustling Sadriya market on Saturday." [1]
(It's strange that after repeatedly saying that protecting people was the foundation of the surge, the U.S. would dismantle the old security system before installing the new. Is it reasonable to assume that dismantling old checkpoints without replacing them with new ones would make it easier to bring bombs into Baghdad? The recent increase in deaths has been mostly caused by bombs. Bombs have also been the favored weapon of the insurgents and terrorists. Who's in charge here and what are their motivations?)
"At a White House briefing on January 10 by two anonymous senior administration officials, one made this startlingly verifiable promise . . . :
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: . . . The Iraqis are going to have three brigades within Baghdad within a little more than a month. They have committed to trying to get one brigade in, I think, by the first of February, and two more by the 15th. . . .
'So people are going to be able to see pretty quickly that the Iraqis are or are not stepping up. And that provides the ability to judge.'
Alright, so now it's past the first of the month, and how's it going?
Steven R. Hurst reported on Thursday (Feb. 1) for the Associated Press: 'Local commanders. . . . said only about 2,000 of the additional troops had reached Baghdad or were nearby. . . .
'An Iraqi army brigade from Irbil, about 3,000 men in principle, will have at most 1,500 men when it finally arrives in Baghdad. The commander says 95 percent of the men don't speak Arabic. A brigade from Sulaimaniyah, also in the Kurdish north, has reached the Muthana Airport in central Baghdad, but it is only 1,000-men strong, not the expected 3,000.' " [2]
"Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.
. . . Many military insiders are skeptical that . . . lessons learned by [Col. H.R.] McMaster in Tall Afar or Petraeus in Mosul will be easily applied in the far larger arena of Baghdad.
The joke among some staff officers was that Petraeus operated in such a freewheeling manner in Iraq's north that he had his own foreign policy with Syria and Turkey. In Baghdad, by contrast, he will have to operate constantly with Iraqi officials, with the U.S. government bureaucracy, and in the global media spotlight. Also, experts agree that the basic problem in Iraq is political, not military.
. . . 'It wouldn't surprise me if Congress pulled the rug out or the Iraqis blocked major revisions in strategy,' said Erin M. Simpson, a Harvard University counterinsurgency expert." [3]
sources
[1] Cave, Damien & Oppel, Richard A. (The New York Times). February 5, 2007. Iraqis Fault Pace of U.S. Plan in Attack.
[2] Froomkin, Dan. (The Washington Post). February 6, 2007. Bush Daring Dems on Iraq.
[3] Ricks, Thomas E. (The Washington Post). February 5, 2007. Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort.
posted: wednesday, february 7, 2007, 4:47 PM ET
update: friday, february 9, 2007, 12:54 PM ET
tags: iraq surge petraeus
. . . In advance of the plan, which would flood Baghdad with thousands of new American and Iraqi troops, many Mahdi Army checkpoints were dismantled and its leaders were either in hiding or under arrest, which was one of the plan’s intended goals to reduce sectarian fighting. But with no immediate influx of new security forces to fill the void, Shiites say, Sunni militants and other anti-Shiite forces have been emboldened to plot the type of attack that obliterated the bustling Sadriya market on Saturday." [1]
(It's strange that after repeatedly saying that protecting people was the foundation of the surge, the U.S. would dismantle the old security system before installing the new. Is it reasonable to assume that dismantling old checkpoints without replacing them with new ones would make it easier to bring bombs into Baghdad? The recent increase in deaths has been mostly caused by bombs. Bombs have also been the favored weapon of the insurgents and terrorists. Who's in charge here and what are their motivations?)
"At a White House briefing on January 10 by two anonymous senior administration officials, one made this startlingly verifiable promise . . . :
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: . . . The Iraqis are going to have three brigades within Baghdad within a little more than a month. They have committed to trying to get one brigade in, I think, by the first of February, and two more by the 15th. . . .
'So people are going to be able to see pretty quickly that the Iraqis are or are not stepping up. And that provides the ability to judge.'
Alright, so now it's past the first of the month, and how's it going?
Steven R. Hurst reported on Thursday (Feb. 1) for the Associated Press: 'Local commanders. . . . said only about 2,000 of the additional troops had reached Baghdad or were nearby. . . .
'An Iraqi army brigade from Irbil, about 3,000 men in principle, will have at most 1,500 men when it finally arrives in Baghdad. The commander says 95 percent of the men don't speak Arabic. A brigade from Sulaimaniyah, also in the Kurdish north, has reached the Muthana Airport in central Baghdad, but it is only 1,000-men strong, not the expected 3,000.' " [2]
"Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.
. . . Many military insiders are skeptical that . . . lessons learned by [Col. H.R.] McMaster in Tall Afar or Petraeus in Mosul will be easily applied in the far larger arena of Baghdad.
The joke among some staff officers was that Petraeus operated in such a freewheeling manner in Iraq's north that he had his own foreign policy with Syria and Turkey. In Baghdad, by contrast, he will have to operate constantly with Iraqi officials, with the U.S. government bureaucracy, and in the global media spotlight. Also, experts agree that the basic problem in Iraq is political, not military.
. . . 'It wouldn't surprise me if Congress pulled the rug out or the Iraqis blocked major revisions in strategy,' said Erin M. Simpson, a Harvard University counterinsurgency expert." [3]
sources
[1] Cave, Damien & Oppel, Richard A. (The New York Times). February 5, 2007. Iraqis Fault Pace of U.S. Plan in Attack.
[2] Froomkin, Dan. (The Washington Post). February 6, 2007. Bush Daring Dems on Iraq.
[3] Ricks, Thomas E. (The Washington Post). February 5, 2007. Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort.
posted: wednesday, february 7, 2007, 4:47 PM ET
update: friday, february 9, 2007, 12:54 PM ET
tags: iraq surge petraeus
Labels: bush plan, conspiracy theory, david petraeus, iraq
posted by eric at 4:18 PM
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