Turning around... and around... and around

Bush:

Making some of his most expansive claims of success in Iraq, he said the increase of 30,000 troops that he ordered to Iraq last year has turned "the situation in Iraq around."

Headline:

'We live in a nightmare. Death and carnage is everywhere' Ali, Baghdad resident

And another:

80,000 Angry Men. Is the US Surge collapsing?

In an investigation carried out by GuardianFilms for Channel 4, we uncover how thousands of Iraqis employed at $10 a day by the US to take on al-Qaida are threatening to go on strike because they say they have been used by the 'Americans to do their dirty work' and haven't been paid

Life in Baghdad:

Before they leave, Crocker and Commanding General David Petraeus, who also remains in office until January 2009, will have to deliver another report to Congress in April and explain to lawmakers what the US troop surge has achieved. After the summer of 2007, the number of attacks declined by half, but then it remained stable. There were just under 2,000 attacks every month from November to January, or about as many as in the spring of 2005.

The prognoses are relatively worthless as long as it is unclear what exactly the results of the turnaround have been. Optimists point to successes among Sunnis. Close to 80,000 former Sunni insurgents have changed sides and now work for the Americans, each of them earning $300 a month. Al-Qaida terrorism has been dealt a serious blow.

But skeptics warn against being too optimistic too soon when it comes to the Shiites. Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has extended his Mahdi militia's cease-fire, which is indisputably the main reason for the drop in sectarian murders. But no one knows whether the cease-fire is merely a strategic move, or whether it will last.

The progress of the war has long depended on both people and developments no one would have imagined five years ago. General Tommy Franks, who directed the US invasion of Iraq, merely rolled his eyes when he was asked at the time what would happen after the war, former US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith writes in his upcoming autobiography "War and Decision." Franks' response to the question was that he didn't have time for that kind of "bullshit." Indeed, there are failures everywhere Feith casts his eyes. But, as the reader soon learns, Feith is convinced that the triumvirate of planners -- then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush and Feith himself -- was infallible.

None of these retrospective quibbles appear to worry the president. "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency," he said last week in Nashville. "It is the right decision at this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision."

Bush's Legacy: The Surge

Which has allowed more soldiers to die in a war that has no cause, no reason, and no end.

Last January, after announcing his "surge" strategy, the president called in his technicians. As it turned out, General David Petraeus, "surge" commander in Iraq, has been quite impressive, as has new US ambassador to that country, Ryan Crocker. Think of them as "the undertakers", since they've been the ones who, applying their skills, have managed to give that Iraqi corpse the faint glow of life.

The president asked them to make Iraq look like it could get up and walk away - and the last year of "success", widely trumpeted in the media, has been the result. But just think about what the defense minister and Bush are promising: By 2018, the country will - supposedly - be able to control its own borders, one of the more basic acts of a sovereign state. That, by itself, tells you much of what you need to be know.

Exactly.

Update: The surge is working... ignore the pesky bombs!:

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Violence left nearly 50 people dead in two major southern cities Friday when members of a shadowy, messianic cult attacked police and fellow Shiite worshippers - a year after a similar plot was foiled during Shiite Islam's most important holiday.

Iraqi authorities said at least 36 people were reported killed in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, and at least 10 in Nasiriyah, where witnesses said U.S.-led coalition jet fighters and helicopter gunships targeted a police station seized by cult gunmen.

I guess this is the new Rovian math they were talking about

30,000 doesn't mean 30,000 anymore.

Via Joe Sudbay of Americablog, NPR interview with Petraeus:

I want to ask about the reduction in troops that you've talked about. I want to first make sure that I understand the numbers that you're talking about. It's been said that what you've described is a reduction in 30,000 troops. Is that, in fact, what you –

[Petraeus] What I've described is a reduction of five brigade combat teams, Army brigade combat teams, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, which actually is coming out this month without replacement, and two Marine battalions. Now, we want to take out other –

That's a little less than –

[Petraeus] Well, we have to do the math, candidly. We've got – I have not yet said how many thousands of troops.

So when people have said 30,000, they're not quite accurate. It might be 30,000 — it might be quite a bit less.

[Petraeus] Well, we've got to determine what it can be. The mission so far, in a sense, was to figure out how to bring these down while sustaining the gains that our troopers and Iraqi troopers have achieved, and also, then, to figure out the larger picture of where else can you reduce forces — which is something we want to do anyway.

So what on earth kind of tap dance will Bush be planning for his mighty-manly-mission-accomplished so-we're-unsurging speech tonight?

How soon before the Right Wing Smear Machine grinds into action?

As U.S. soldiers speak up to tell us that Bush's Big Manly Mighty Macho Muscly Surge is not working?

Think Progress:

A group of infantrymen and officers of the 82nd Airborne Division write in the New York Times today that they are “skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable.” Reports of progress, they say, have “neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.” They write:

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. […]

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

The war critics who went to Iraq and were dazzled by the Big Surge

Their story has now unraveled into a sad little pile of propaganda by the Pentagon. Think Theresienstadt.

Glenn Greenwald:

Last Wednesday, I interviewed Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution regarding the trip he recently took to Iraq and the highly publicized Op-Ed in the New York Times about his trip, co-written with his Brookings colleague, Ken Pollack. The full transcript of the interview, which lasted roughly 50 minutes, can be read here.

O'Hanlon's answers, along with several other facts now known, demonstrate rather conclusively what a fraud this Op-Ed was, and even more so, the deceitfulness of the intense news coverage it generated. Most of the critical attention in the immediate aftermath of the media blitz focused on the misleading depiction of the pro-war Pollack and O'Hanlon as "critics of the administration." To his credit, O'Hanlon acknowledged (in my interview with him, though never in any of the media appearances he did) that many of the descriptions applied to him -- including Dick Cheney's claim that the Op-Ed was written by "critics of the war" -- were inaccurate...
[snip]
But the far greater deceit involves the trip itself and the way it was represented -- both by Pollack/O'Hanlon as well as the excited media figures who touted its significance and meaning. From beginning to end, this trip was planned, shaped and controlled by the U.S. military -- a fact inexcusably concealed in both the Op-Ed itself and virtually every interview the two of them gave. With very few exceptions, what they saw was choreographed by the U.S. military and carefully selected for them.
[snip]
But the far greater deceit involves the trip itself and the way it was represented -- both by Pollack/O'Hanlon as well as the excited media figures who touted its significance and meaning. From beginning to end, this trip was planned, shaped and controlled by the U.S. military -- a fact inexcusably concealed in both the Op-Ed itself and virtually every interview the two of them gave. With very few exceptions, what they saw was choreographed by the U.S. military and carefully selected for them.

Think Progress' take on the interview.

And the reality on the ground? Exhaustion and despair: (Via rmj at Adventus)

Where once the war in Iraq was defined in conversations with these men by untenable ideas - bringing democracy or defeating al-Qaeda - these days the war in Iraq is defined by different ways of expressing the idea of being weary. It is a theme that is endlessly reiterated as you travel around Iraq. 'The army is worn out. We are just keeping people in theatre who are exhausted,' says a soldier working for the US army public affairs office who is supposed to be telling me how well things have been going since the 'surge' in Baghdad began.

They are not supposed to talk like this. We are driving and another of the public affairs team adds bitterly: 'We should just be allowed to tell the media what is happening here. Let them know that people are worn out. So that their families know back home. But it's like we've become no more than numbers now.'

Can't we just Big Surge Georgie out of office?

Because the war in Iraq isn't going to end prettily:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is laying the groundwork to extend the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq. At the same time, the administration is warning Iraqi leaders that the boost in forces could be reversed if political reconciliation is not evident by summer.

This approach underscores the central difficulty facing President Bush. If political progress is not possible in the relatively short term, then the justification for sending thousands more U.S. troops to Baghdad - and accepting the rising U.S. combat death toll that has resulted - will disappear. That in turn would put even more pressure on Bush to yield to the Democratic-led push to wind down the war in coming months.

Nice going, Georgie. Drove yourself right into a ditch.

Between Iraq and a hard place

Phillip Carter at Intel Dump:

Speaking to reporters today while traveling in Egypt, Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed grave concern over the potential collapse of Iraq's government. According to the Times, Gates said that a failed state in Iraq “will be felt in the capitals and communities of the Middle East well before they are felt in Washington or New York . . . The forces that would be unleashed -- of sectarian strife, of an emboldened extremist movement with access to sanctuaries -- do not recognize national boundaries.” Which leaves America, well, stuck between Iraq and a hard place. What do we do now?

In another article, Carter explains:

This, then, is a story about when and how — not if — the Washington clock runs down. If Bush is successful, the time on that clock will expire after the November 2008 election, when he passes the Iraq problem to the next president and surrenders his legacy to history. Democrats are determined to make the sands run out on Bush's "surge" strategy much sooner — the better to begin the long homeward march of U.S. troops on the watch of the president who sent them to Iraq in the first place.

What U.S. military experts know about those discordant timelines, but what many of their fellow Americans seem to hardly grasp, is that regardless of when it occurs, the expiration of the political clock will not be the end. Rather, it will mark the beginning of the most challenging and potentially calamitous phase of the Iraq war.

"There's an old military adage that the most dangerous and hazardous of all military maneuvers is a withdrawal of forces while in contact with the enemy. That's the operation all of us soldiers fear the most," retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a former commandant of the Army War College, told National Journal.

Some experts argue that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq will remove a major irritant and thus facilitate a resolution to the conflict, Scales noted, and others believe that a U.S. pullout could prompt chaos, massive bloodletting, and even genocide. "And if anyone insists that they know which it will be," he said, "they are lying. The truth is, we don't have enough understanding or insight into the thousands of intangibles to know what forces will drive the dynamic inside Iraq once we begin pulling out."As I see it, there are three questions open for discussion:

1) How much time does Gen. Petraeus and his team have left on the clock? (And in this case, the time is a function of domestic political calculus here in the U.S.)

2) What does Plan G look like? Is it (a) a transition to an advisory model, as a step towards withdrawal; (b) a slow withdrawal via the unit rotation process; or (c) a rapid withdrawal where everyone walks/drives/flies to the nearest border?

3) What happens to Iraq after we leave?

The presidential candidate who answers these three questions — and sells the answer to the American public — will win in 2008.

It also means that al-Maliki could be dumped (so much for free elections) and Allawi will be brought back in. Quoting the Asia Times via this post:

Ultimately, what unites Muqtada and Maliki is much more than what divides them. Both want a theocracy in Iraq. Both want the Americans to leave - although with different degrees of urgency. And both would dread a post-Maliki regime because most probably it would mean the return of former premier Iyad Allawi, who has promised to launch a deadly war against sectarianism, militias and Muqtada.

His record speaks for itself; he launched a bloody war against the Sadrists when he serving as prime minister in 2004. Sectarian politicians like Muqtada and Maliki dread the coming of the secular Allawi, who has frantically been trying to put together a coalition and convince both Arab regimes and the US administration to give him another go.

Muqtada, who has referred to Allawi as "the unbeliever who will soon succeed Maliki", sees Allawi as waiting for an opportune moment to strike at him and Maliki. He said, "We represent the majority of the country that does not want Iraq turned into a secular state and a slave of the Western powers, as Allawi dreams to the contrary."

As far as Muqtada and Maliki are concerned, they are willing to work with the devil - or each other - to defeat Allawi.

The difference between a clear realistic vision

And a deliberately befogged one when looking at Iraq.

Juan Cole compares General Petraeus and John McCain:

I have a great deal of admiration for General Petraeus. I believe he really cares about the welfare of Iraqis, that he knows something serious about counter-insurgency, and that he will do the very best he can to restore security to Baghdad. I don't think the key is the extra 17,500 troops, but how exactly the troops already there are deployed. But according to press reports, he laughs when people ask him if the surge is working yet. He knows that it is a long haul. And he also implied that if he thinks it isn't working by June, or the Iraqi government hasn't done everything it could by then, he may have some tough decisions to make, since he can't go on risking his troops' lives for a mission that isn't getting done.

That's what McCain should be saying. That it is too early to tell, militarily. He should let us hear the doubt in his voice. And that if it doesn't work, if al-Maliki doesn't step up, then the US troops will come first. I don't hear that kind of realism, and dedication to the welfare of the troops, from McCain. I used to, when he wasn't running for president. He isn't going to be president, and the albatross of this war he has bought into is why. Not only because it is an unpopular war, but because he cannot see it in a clear-eyed way. We don't need any more presidents with big blinders on.

Apparently Bush thinks the word surge

Means long-term escalation:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army said on Friday it was sending some 2,600 soldiers to Iraq earlier than planned, raising the number of extra U.S. troops being deployed in a new effort to stabilise the country to nearly 30,000.

News of the latest deployment came as Democrats who now control Congress pushed legislation to end a war that is increasingly unpopular in the United States.

The combat aviation brigade from the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division would deploy in early May, some 45 days sooner than previously envisaged, the Army said.

The brigade is the third element to be announced in a package of support units being deployed to assist 21,500 extra combat troops ordered to Iraq under a plan unveiled by President George W. Bush in January.

"The aviation brigade, which is really principally rotary helicopter support for the troops, is the final piece," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters.

There are more than 140,000 U.S. troops already fighting in Iraq, where sectarian violence has thwarted American efforts to bring the four-year-old war to a close.

Or this is Bush's do-over since things are falling apart. We have to fight for his legacy, you know.

Oh, by the way.... we can't win

The new US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said on Thursday reinforcements pouring into Baghdad have a long task ahead of them and warned there is no military solution to the conflict.

The general also said that Iraqi leaders would eventually have to sit down and talk with some of the violent factions tearing the country apart.

The Big Long Term Escalation Surge

Is being run by the same guys who gave you the Eternal War on a Noun:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their time between deployments to meet the demands of President Bush’s buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday.

National Guard officials told state commanders in Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio last month that while a final decision had not been made, units from their states that had done previous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan could be designated to return to Iraq next year between January and June, the officials said.

The unit from Oklahoma, a combat brigade with one battalion currently in Afghanistan, had not been scheduled to go back to Iraq until 2010, and brigades from the other three states not until 2009. Each brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.

The accelerated timetable illustrates the cascading effect that the White House plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq by more than 21,000 is putting on the entire Army and in particular on Reserve forces, which officers predicted would face severe challenges in recruiting, training and equipping their forces.

Yet:

U.S. Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan lack more than 4,000 of the latest Humvee armor kit, known as FRAG Kit 5, according to U.S. officials. The Army has ramped up production of the armor, giving priority to troops in Baghdad, but the upgrade is not scheduled to be completed until this summer, Army officials said. That is well into the timeline for major operations launched last week to quell violence by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, which the U.S. military now views as the top security threat in Iraq.

[snip]

Fewer than half the Army's roughly 14,500 up-armored Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan have been outfitted with the bolt-on version of FRAG Kit 5. Thousands of the permanent kits have been flown to Iraq and are being installed at 11 locations around the country, officials said. Over the next six months, the Army plans to produce 5,000 more Humvees with the permanent kits already installed, Anderson said.

Overall, Army equipment backlogs had grown so severe, Anderson said, such a troop increase would not have been possible last year. He said the Army is in a far better position now, thanks to an infusion of $17 billion last year to replace and repair equipment.

Still, Pace said last week that U.S. troops will face a gap of up-armored Humvees and other armored vehicles that will not be closed until July, and according to the Pentagon, commanders will be required to share 500 up-armored vehicles. But the Army said it is not short of up-armored Humvees in Iraq.

And:

Soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division had so little time between deployments to Iraq they had to cram more than a year's worth of training into four months.

Some had only a few days to learn how to fire their new rifles before they deployed to Iraq -- for the third time -- last month. They had no access to the heavily armored vehicles they will be using in Iraq, so they trained on a handful of old military trucks instead. And some soldiers were assigned to the brigade so late that they had no time to train in the United States at all. Instead of the yearlong training recommended prior to deployment, they prepared for war during the two weeks they spent in Kuwait, en route to Anbar, Iraq's deadliest province.

As the Pentagon prepares to boost troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 people, such logistical and training hurdles are emblematic of the struggles besieging a military strained by unexpectedly long and grueling commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And forcing our soldiers to wear second-rate body armor when better armor exists.

I guess you go to war with the administration you have selected for you, not the administration you actually voted for.

Surging without equipment

Is kinda like going to war without a plan, getting elected without a clue, governing without intelligence.... but I digress:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 U.S. Marine Gen. Peter Pace admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday equipment will be a problem when U.S. forces in Iraq are increased.

During testimony over the $481.4 billion fiscal 2008 defense budget, Pace said the military has about 41,000 armored vehicles in Iraq -- fewer than will be needed to cover all of the troops that are deploying.Pace said it will be July before enough equipment is in place.

The commanders on the ground have talked with the chief of staff of the Army and the commandant of the Marine Corps and have agreed that they will be able to share the assets on the ground so that no soldier or Marine will leave the compound without proper protection, Pace said when asked why more troops should be deployed immediately.

Whaddaya gonna do, Mr. President?

Think Progress:

On Monday, NPR senior correspondent Juan Williams interviewed President Bush and asked him a question from Spec. Ryan Schmidt of Forest Lake, MN, who is serving in Iraq: “What if your plan for a troop surge to Baghdad does not work?”
[snip]

Schmidt added, “For some of us that are over here, particularly me, my unit, we all feel, what’s the point of us being extended if your initial plan to send more troops over here does not work? What are you going to do, Mr. President?”

Think Progress has the audio link. Listen to the Commander-in-Chief speak. Now it's just painfully embarrassing.

Join the troops

Stop the escalation.

The Big Surge isn't, won't, and can't

Steve Gilliard tells us how bad it actually is in Iraq, what the surge will not do because of the militias and our mercenaries, and what will happen:

But in the end, it doesn't matter if the surge happens. It won't change anything but who dies in Iraq.

However, this has placed the Bush administration on very dangerous ground in the US. By ignorng the Iraq Study Group, he has made it clear that the Republican Party is on it's own. The impeachment drumbeat has been in the background since last summer. It's a popular idea outside the beltway.

The Republicans voting for resolutions today are the Republicans who will demand Bush resign by the end of summer. As the surge fails and Bush has no answers, the establishment will demand something be done. Bush and Cheney act as if they have unlimited power. They do not. His polling numbers are under 30 percent and won't be going higher. The public wants the war to end.

Bush acts as if he can continue like this for two years. I doubt he can do this for six months. All the Sadrists have to do is spring one massive ambush and his Iraq policy will collapse. What will Dave Petraeus say when one of his little De Lattre forts are overrun and 30 dead Americans are left while the Iraqis disappear?

Our Iraq policy hangs on one failure. One. Once it happens, Bush loses any moral standing to prolong the war. I take Bush at his word that he will leave withdrawal to the next president. However, that president is likely to be Nancy Pelosi or John Warner and it won't be in 2009

Why didn't you tell them that the other two times?

Americablog:

Markos reports the following, then read on because I have more and it's good:

In an interview, Pelosi also said she was puzzled by what she considered the president's minimalist explanation for his confidence in the new surge of 21,500 U.S. troops that he has presented as the crux of a new "way forward" for U.S. forces in Iraq.

"He's tried this two times — it's failed twice," the California Democrat said. "I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?' And he said, 'Because I told them it had to.' "

Asked if the president had elaborated, she added that he simply said, " 'I told them that they had to.' That was the end of it. That's the way it is."

Oh, it's better than that. When I was on the Hill on Tuesday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told us (on the record) the rest of the story. Apparently, Pelosi's final come-back to the president was the following:

PELOSI: He's tried this two times — it's failed twice. I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?'

BUSH: Because I told them it had to.

PELOSI: Why didn't you tell them that the other two times?

um... They aren't standing up yet

They're taking cover and shooting each other.

Washington Post:

The battle for Baghdad will start in mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods chosen by military strategists as being the least likely to offer stiff resistance, raising the odds of early success...[snip]

The general [Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus], whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for this morning, plans to send all 17,500 additional U.S. troops ordered by President Bush into Baghdad, regardless of whether Iraqi army units join the fight as planned, according to officials familiar with his thinking. Anticipating an uneven performance by the Iraqi army, military planners are advocating using American force and funding quickly to establish early victories, both in improving security and showing economic progress.

BarbinMD at Daily Kos:

During the week, the soldiers also received their first glimpse of the green Iraqi forces who will share the mission and eventually, they hoped, take it over. The soldiers talked about them with a mixture of bemusement, disdain and mistrust.

"You could talk about partnership, but you would be lying," said one soldier who asked that his name not be used, for fear of punishment by his superiors.

Congress persons for or against escalation

And those fearfully straddling both sides of the fence.

"Senator, are you for or against the McCain doctrine of escalation?"

Bush informs the nation he's the Gingerbread man

"Run, run, as fast as you can!
You can't catch me!
I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

"WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more troops to Iraq, said he has the authority to act no matter what Congress wants.

"I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward," Bush told CBS'"60 Minutes" in an interview to air Sunday night."

Strange.... Arab countries do not really believe Bush's New Better Manly Big Surge Way Forward Now With Sparkles!

"A new US strategy in Iraq has been received with skepticism in the Arab world.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have warned that reconciliation and national unity in Iraq are necessary for the success of Bush's new plan.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf countries - all dominated by Sunni Muslims - are increasingly suspicious of al-Maliki's government and worry about the influence of Iran.

Some fear that the Shia-led government is sidelining Iraq's Sunni minority.

Suleiman Awaad, the Egyptian presidential spokesman, told reporters on Saturday that Egypt wants "everybody to comprehend ... that a national reconciliation is the necessary condition and obligation for this process to succeed".

A change in US policy toward Iraq was inevitable, Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, said.

"Unity of Iraq is necessary, independence of Iraq is necessary and peace in Iraq is necessary," he said.

"None of these have been achieved so far. There must be a change, of course."

The comments were the first official response by the two powers to Bush's call on moderate Arab countries to step up their support for the Iraqi government.