The President and Gen. David Petraeus exchanged betting metaphors in planning the Surge, according to Woodward's new book to be published next week.
In January 2007, when Bush told the new Iraq commander that the Surge was an attempt to "double down," Petraeus replied, "Mr. President, this is not double down. This is all in."
Five years and thousands of American lives after the invasion, a disconnected Commander-in-Chief was still being briefed with figures of speech that recall Colin Powell's Pottery Barn warning, "You break it, you own it."
In a preview of "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," the Washington Post describes "an administration riven by dissension, either unwilling or slow to confront the deterioration of its strategy in Iraq...
"Publicly, Bush maintained that U.S. forces were 'winning'; privately, he came to believe that the military's long-term strategy of training Iraq security forces and handing over responsibility to the new Iraqi government was failing."
Before the 2006 elections, according to Woodward, Bush asked for a review of the war "under the radar screen" after Condoleezza Rice challenged the wisdom of sending additional troops to Iraq. "You're not getting a clear picture of what's going on," she reportedly told Bush, claiming that Don Rumsfeld was giving him "a fable, a story...that skirted the real problems."
Bush fired Rumsfeld but still maintained an "odd detachment" about the war, telling Woodward, "This is nothing that you hurry" when asked whether he had given advisers a firm deadline for recommending a revised war strategy.
Ultimately, Bush overrode the advice of the Joint Chiefs and became gung-ho in deciding on the Surge, which Woodward concludes worked not simply because of additional troops but "groundbreaking" new covert techniques to find and kill insurgent leaders as well as the decision by Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his Mahdi Army and the "Anbar Awakening," in which Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda.
Woodward had ended his previous book with the line: "With all Bush’s upbeat talk and optimism, he had not told the American public the truth about what Iraq had become." He repeats that now, adding: "My reporting for this book showed that to be even more the case than I could have imagined."
Showing posts with label the Surge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Surge. Show all posts
Friday, September 05, 2008
Monday, September 03, 2007
U.S. Casualties: Cooking the Books
The new biography of George W. Bush is titled “Dead Certain.” Today we get a cheery headline from the Pentagon, “Combat Deaths in Iraq Decline,” which should be called “Dead Wrong.”
Not only is the conclusion faulty, but the numbers themselves have been doctored. Using as its source iCasualties.org, the report says about fatalties that “by June, the number fell to 93, then to 66 in July and to 57 in August.” But the figures on the web site are 101, 79 and 81 respectively.
For those months a year earlier, the numbers were 61, 43 and 65. The only “decline” seems to be in the veracity of the people trying to make a case that the Surge is saving American lives.
Those numbers, right or wrong, represent young men and women with grieving families who will not find comfort in any statistics about this endless mayhem. But the least they, and we, should be able to expect is the simple truth of how many there are.
Today the President is in Anbar, saluting the “remarkable turnaround” there. The only turnaround worth hailing would be that of our troops starting to leave.
For more on this subject, see this.
Not only is the conclusion faulty, but the numbers themselves have been doctored. Using as its source iCasualties.org, the report says about fatalties that “by June, the number fell to 93, then to 66 in July and to 57 in August.” But the figures on the web site are 101, 79 and 81 respectively.
For those months a year earlier, the numbers were 61, 43 and 65. The only “decline” seems to be in the veracity of the people trying to make a case that the Surge is saving American lives.
Those numbers, right or wrong, represent young men and women with grieving families who will not find comfort in any statistics about this endless mayhem. But the least they, and we, should be able to expect is the simple truth of how many there are.
Today the President is in Anbar, saluting the “remarkable turnaround” there. The only turnaround worth hailing would be that of our troops starting to leave.
For more on this subject, see this.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Petraeus' Gung-Ho Preview
Like any theatrical piece, “The David Petraeus Show” is having out-of-town tryouts before opening in Washington two weeks from now.
Today, the General gave an upbeat performance. He told the Australian in an interview at his Baghdad headquarters there has been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year, a doubling in the seizure of insurgents' weapons caches between January and August, a rise in the number of al-Qaeda "kills and captures" and a fall in the number of coalition deaths from roadside bombings.
The Surge, he claimed, has turned U.S. forces into pursuers instead of defenders. "And that is a much better place to be than to be doing a deliberate attack into their defenses, like we had to do in Ramadi," he said. "Ramadi was like Stalingrad."
More ominous was the impression that the General was toeing the Bush-Cheney line about Iran.
"There is growing concern,” he said, “by the Iraqi Government, by us, and our own Government as we have learned more and more about the degree of this malign involvement of the Iranian Quds force with the militia extremists that have been supported by them, trained, equipped, armed, funded and even in some cases directed."
If this is the monologue he is working on for his Congressional appearance, Gen. Petraeus may end up turning the discussion about getting out of Iraq into a debate about invading Iran.
Has anybody been helping him with the script? The war critics had better be preparing their rebuttal to a new Petraeus offensive.
Today, the General gave an upbeat performance. He told the Australian in an interview at his Baghdad headquarters there has been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year, a doubling in the seizure of insurgents' weapons caches between January and August, a rise in the number of al-Qaeda "kills and captures" and a fall in the number of coalition deaths from roadside bombings.
The Surge, he claimed, has turned U.S. forces into pursuers instead of defenders. "And that is a much better place to be than to be doing a deliberate attack into their defenses, like we had to do in Ramadi," he said. "Ramadi was like Stalingrad."
More ominous was the impression that the General was toeing the Bush-Cheney line about Iran.
"There is growing concern,” he said, “by the Iraqi Government, by us, and our own Government as we have learned more and more about the degree of this malign involvement of the Iranian Quds force with the militia extremists that have been supported by them, trained, equipped, armed, funded and even in some cases directed."
If this is the monologue he is working on for his Congressional appearance, Gen. Petraeus may end up turning the discussion about getting out of Iraq into a debate about invading Iran.
Has anybody been helping him with the script? The war critics had better be preparing their rebuttal to a new Petraeus offensive.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
The Menace of Mr. Smooth
Not only was Robert Gates an Eagle Scout in his youth but he grew up to become president of the National Eagle Scout Association. Unlike his grating predecessor as Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld, Gates is soporific and therein may lie his menace to America.
Today on Meet the Press, Gates lulled us with his uninflected claim of “positive things happening at the local level” in Iraq, “confidence in the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to make in early September” and a reminder he had told the Iraqi parliament that “every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”
All this sounds sane and plausible, but American blood keeps flowing and Gates, by not being cocky and condescending like Rumsfeld, is enabling it. His intelligence and rationality may doing more damage.
In the subtitle of his memoirs was the phrase “the ultimate insider,” and Gates has certainly been that for almost four decades, most of it with the C.I.A., loyal to the point of almost being prosecuted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.
After leaving government to become a college president, Gates in 2005 declined the newly created position of uber-Director of National Intelligence saying he "had nothing to look forward to in D.C.” But he couldn’t refuse the offer to succeed Rumsfeld.
From his demeanor and statements, and as a former member of the Iraq Study Group, Robert Gates clearly understands the futility of the enterprise there. But he has spent his life being a good and loyal servant of those in power, Reagan and both Bushes.
It’s unlikely that he wakes in the middle of the night with pangs over what he is buying with American blood, but it would be comforting to believe he is capable of that.
Today on Meet the Press, Gates lulled us with his uninflected claim of “positive things happening at the local level” in Iraq, “confidence in the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to make in early September” and a reminder he had told the Iraqi parliament that “every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”
All this sounds sane and plausible, but American blood keeps flowing and Gates, by not being cocky and condescending like Rumsfeld, is enabling it. His intelligence and rationality may doing more damage.
In the subtitle of his memoirs was the phrase “the ultimate insider,” and Gates has certainly been that for almost four decades, most of it with the C.I.A., loyal to the point of almost being prosecuted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.
After leaving government to become a college president, Gates in 2005 declined the newly created position of uber-Director of National Intelligence saying he "had nothing to look forward to in D.C.” But he couldn’t refuse the offer to succeed Rumsfeld.
From his demeanor and statements, and as a former member of the Iraq Study Group, Robert Gates clearly understands the futility of the enterprise there. But he has spent his life being a good and loyal servant of those in power, Reagan and both Bushes.
It’s unlikely that he wakes in the middle of the night with pangs over what he is buying with American blood, but it would be comforting to believe he is capable of that.
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