LAT: U.S. commanders in Iraq recommend a 'surge'

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-troops23dec23,0,2095230.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Top U.S. military commanders in Iraq have decided to recommend a "surge" of fresh American combat forces, eliminating one of the last remaining hurdles to proposals being considered by President Bush for a troop increase, a defense official familiar with the plan said Friday.

The approval of a troop increase plan by top Iraq commanders, including Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, comes days before Bush unveils a new course for the troubled U.S. involvement in Iraq. Bush still must address concerns among some Pentagon officials and overcome opposition from Congress, where many Democrats favor a blue-ribbon commission's recommendation for a gradual withdrawal of combat troops.

But the recommendation by the commanders in Iraq is significant because Bush has placed prime importance on their advice. The U.S. command in Iraq decided to recommend an increase of troops several days ago, prior to meetings in Baghdad this week with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the defense official said.

Gates, who returned to Washington on Friday, will join Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley in meetings with President Bush Saturday at Camp David. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said the meeting was part of the Iraq strategy review, and Bush was not expected to make a final decision on the administration's new policy.

Gee I guess they got their orders. So what happened to the unanimous opinion of the JCS that escalation was both stupid and unfeasible? Did it change?

resigned his commision, effective in February...

Does the name of JChiefs Chinseki ring any bells?

Same shit, different day

This is looking like Viet Nam Part 2 to me, but I may be wrong.
If we kill 99% of the Iraqi people, it may be considered a 'win'.
Or at least, if we kill enough of the Iraqis, they'll be subjucated and comply with our will and the
Bush administration can claim a victory.
It's apparent though, that Georges idea of victory is the suppression of dissent in Iraq, which to me,
is slavery.
Slavery= Freedom
Up=Down
Right= Wrong
Imperialism = Democracy

Why is he not in Jail?
GWB imo is a war criminal.

Do I smell a decider somewhere ?

troops and bingo! the insurgents are gone and the Iraqis will love us and throw more flowers at our feet and greet us as liberators.......oh wait...

I wonder what besides the increase in military Bush threw in there. Or perhaps he said go with me or resign...probably that was the icing on the cake.

They see the war in Iraq as a struggle between Jesus and Satan, with Bush as G-d's Anointed One.

Don't voters matter anymore?

He (with the help of advisors committed to telling him exactly the advice he wants to accept shortly before he accepts it) doesn't have to answer to voters for this. That's the American system, and it would be no different if it was Bill Clinton, post-impeachment, lame duck, late 2nd term.

Not that I would weep over that.

...O...

(snip)
WASHINGTON -- Top US military commanders in Iraq have decided to recommend a "surge" of fresh American combat forces, eliminating one of the last remaining hurdles to proposals being considered by President Bush for a troop increase, a defense official familiar with the plan said yesterday.

The approval of a troop-increase plan by top commanders, including General George W. Casey Jr. and Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno, is occurring days before Bush unveils a new course for the troubled US involvement in Iraq.
(snip)

(snip)
But the recommendation by the commanders in Iraq is significant because Bush has placed prime importance on their advice. The US command in Iraq decided to recommend an increase in troops several days ago, before meetings in Baghdad this week with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the defense official said.
(snip)

(snip)
Commanders have been skeptical of the value of increasing troops, and the decision represents a reversal for Casey, the highest-ranking officer in Iraq. Casey and General John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, who will step down in March, have long resisted the addition of troops, arguing that it could delay the development of Iraqi security forces and increase anger at the United States in the Arab world.
(snip)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/12/23/troop_increase_urged_in_iraq/

Well now I guess we know why Gates went to Iraq so quickly. Message delivered.

Run it up the flag post and see if people are stupid enough to believe it. I for one don't. I don't think the top commanders want this, Bush and Cheney, the blood thirsty, want it.

elsewhere in the world?

What did anybody expect from these bums? It will take a long time to restore our military after having it run by the republican mafia.

The first thing the Dems need to do is fully fund the VA. It is the least we can do for ther troops after we stupidly allowed a criminal regime to take over.

"Casey and Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East who will step down in March, have long resisted adding troops in Iraq, arguing that it could delay the development of Iraqi security forces and increase anger at the United States in the Arab world."


Their arms must be twisted beyond all recognition.

Surge may allow Bush to stall for the next two years and then dump it all on somebody else. He figures then he won't have to take the blame for the entire disaster from beginning to end. They may even get to blame it on Clinton again, albeit a different one.

while it wreaks havoc on troop rotation and their families back home, not to mention the increased violence in Iraq.

Remember this: our troops want to go home, while the Iraqis are already home! (Echoes of Vietnam)

Sunnis must win +
US must have Saudi oil =
US fights Saudi battles for them.

It's the new math.

All the rest is P.R.

This seems like such a sad little "escalation" that it barely deserves the term.

After Army Chief of Staff Shinseki was pushed out of the door for telling Congress that he needed a quarter of a million troops to invade Iraq, all the other generals fell quickly in line with Rumsfeld.

Now we can see that Gates will continue with the same policies Rumsfeld had in place at the Pentagon, and that he hasn't changed one iota since he kept CIA analysts on the same ideological page during the Reagan Administration.

Why is this great news? Because the end of the war is near!

There are two ways to end this war:

1. The Democratic Congress shuts down the war by voting to cutoff all funding for the surge and passes a resolution in which only funds to bring the troops home can be spend, or

2. Bush gets his way and sends our troops to a "Stalingrad on the Tigris."

Either way, the war will be over!

It's been so long since the Dem leadership had spinal cords that shutting down the war is more of a "non-starter" than impeachment. They don't want the label 'surrender puppies'.

Does anyone else remember in the 60s and 70s when people were building their own backyard bomb shelters? Well, I'm ready to start digging.

Just look at what's happening in the Persian gulf. We now will have two carrier groups there in an area not much larger than a bathtub, with and entrance/exit choke point that can be sealed with just sinking a couple of tankers. This will leave a good sized chunk of our naval power as sitting ducks for Iran's Sunburn anti-ship missiles, for which we have no defense.

The start of WWII with Pearl Harbor proved that the battleship, the mainstay of the world's navies, was now irrelevant to world power, supplanted by the aircraft carrier. I think that now we will see the aircraft carrier become irrelevant. When that huge investment in wealth and humanity can be nullified by a far, far cheaper missile it's time of influence has expired.

Furthermore, I believe that all of this is Bush's plan to FINALLY deploy nukes against his enemy of choice, Iran. He claims to be a "war president", and the only war president to deploy nukes so far has been Harry Truman. Bush can't stand to be second to a wimp like Truman, so he'll spray his testosterone around with a couple of nukes to Iran. He just can't help it. It's his nature. He's a bully.

But what will be the outcome of flexing our naval muscles in the Gulf? Let's specify that we attack Iran with conventional weapons, wiser heads prevailing against Commander Monkeybrain. Iran will then have the option of using Sunburns on our carriers. I believe the opportunity to pull the fangs of the "Great Satan" will be too much to pass up for Iran's leadership. Also, in the event that we attack Iran's population centers, Iran's youth will no longer be calling for reform in their government. They'll be calling for retribution against our troops. And there we sit on the other side of their border with 150,000 American troops unable to handle just insurgents. What will be the outcome if Iran's army pours over the border and goes after our troops? The outcome will be tens of thousands of dead Americans.

In that case, I'm hoping that impeachment will not be enough. I believe that the American people will demand a firing squad for Bush/Cheney, and the rest of the neocons.

of Iran. Any attack on Iran would become the Mother of all FUBARs.

I totally agree with your analysis on the situation in the Gulf and Bush's foolish invocation of gunboat diplomacy.

:kick:

The American military command in Iraq is now willing to back a temporary increase in American troops in Baghdad as part of a broader Iraqi and United States effort to stem the slide toward chaos, senior American officials said Saturday.

President Bush and his advisers were told Saturday of the new position when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with them at Camp David, an administration official said.

Until recently, the top ground commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., has argued that sending more American forces into Baghdad and Anbar Province, the two most violent regions of Iraq, would increase the Iraqi dependency on Washington, and in the words of one senior official, “make this feel more like an occupation.”

But General Casey and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who has day-to-day command of American forces in Iraq, indicated they were open to a troop increase when Mr. Gates met with them in Baghdad this week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/world/middleeast/24military.html?hp&ex=1166936400&en=9f10f16f660f351d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

disgusting. I hope the Dems fight this to the max.

Yee-haw!

But I wonder how temporary that "temporary increase" will prove to be. (Moreover, once we start escalating, it opens the door for more escalation: in terms of levels of force; in terms of geography; in terms of methods and tools; etc.)

And I wonder what stupidity the neocons (still ascendent in the executive branch) will cook up for Syria and Iran (etc).

It's going to an interesting 25 months.

Can you believe that the "Rascals are still in charge" after having gotten us to this point? Columnist Paul Campos tells what the British did to an admiral who failed and then applies it to the current situation.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/columnist/0,1299,DRMN_86_105,00.html

"At the beginning of the Seven Years' War, the English admiral John Byng was sent to relieve Fort St. Philip on the island of Minorca. Commanding an undermanned fleet, Byng was unable to repulse the French warships besieging the island, and the fort was forced to surrender.

When he returned to England, Byng was court-martialed, and convicted for having failed "to do his utmost" to secure victory. He was executed by firing squad on the deck of the HMS Monarch, in Portsmouth Harbor. This incident inspired the French writer Voltaire's famously sardonic comment that in England "it is considered a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time, pour encourager les autres ."

Voltaire's epigram crossed my mind when I heard neo-conservative military strategist Frederick Kagan holding forth on National Public Radio, regarding his plan to send a "surge" of new combat troops to Iraq. The word in Washington is that Kagan's plan is much to President Bush's liking, and that the president is inclined to put it into action next month.

...while I wouldn't go so far as to recommend the occasional execution of a neo-conservative strategist, it's worth noting that the chief architects of the Iraq war have suffered no punishment whatsoever for plunging the nation into the biggest foreign policy disaster in our history.

...Of all the tragic aspects of this national disaster this is worst: The people who have been catastrophically wrong about everything are still in charge. And a year from now, when things are even worse in Iraq, we can be sure the neo-conservatives will still be demanding that yet more American soldiers die so that (conservative) ilk can continue to live out their increasingly destructive geopolitical fantasies.

A few of these people need to begin to pay some price for the damage they're doing - if only "to encourage the others" to stop.

He's still got his fingers in everything bush.

dang it!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/world/middleeast/24military.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

December 24, 2006
Commander Said to Be Open to More Troops

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 — The American military command in Iraq is now willing to back a temporary increase in American troops in Baghdad as part of a broader Iraqi and United States effort to stem the slide toward chaos, senior American officials said Saturday.

President Bush and his advisers were told Saturday of the new position when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with them at Camp David, an administration official said.

Until recently, the top ground commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., has argued that sending more American forces into Baghdad and Anbar Province, the two most violent regions of Iraq, would increase the Iraqi dependency on Washington, and in the words of one senior official, “make this feel more like an occupation.”

But General Casey and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who has day-to-day command of American forces in Iraq, indicated they were open to a troop increase when Mr. Gates met with them in Baghdad this week. ............

"But General Casey and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who has day-to-day command of American forces in Iraq, indicated they were open to a troop increase when Mr. Gates met with them in Baghdad this week."

However...

"Until recently, the top ground commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., has argued that sending more American forces into Baghdad and Anbar Province, the two most violent regions of Iraq, would increase the Iraqi dependency on Washington, and in the words of one senior official, “make this feel more like an occupation.”

In other words "this is the official administration position, therefore it is YOUR official position, sir."

"Now get out there and voice your position to the public."

...Cheney and Bush get their way!

The military chiefs have been won over by the promise of permanent expansion - more money, more jobs, shiny new toys. That's why the surge and the separate long-term army buildup were presented as a package. It's nor a flip-flop, it's a stitch-up. The brass let more of their boys die in a lost war so they get a bigger plaything in future.

If precedence if any teacher, then he is probably trying to protect his pension and honorable easeout. I look for his retirement over the next year per formula. These are our brave warriors?