The Surge
August 1st, 2007 |President Bush announced the Iraqi Troop Surge on January 10 2007. The goal of the surge was to pacify and secure the major population areas, primarily Baghdad, in order to allow the political process to get back on track.
On March 11 2007 neoconservative Robert Kagan wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post stating that the surge was working.
In the face of continued violence, and the lack of political progress in Iraq, the American people were told that it it would actually take months to build up the troop strength in Iraq before the surge could actually get started and it would be impossible to judge the success of the surge until September 2007.
A month out from magical September we have seen the following recent “progress” in Iraq:
• AFP: At least 1,652 civilians were killed in Iraq in July, 33 percent more than in the previous month, according to figures compiled by the Iraqi health, defense and interior ministries and made available to AFP.
• AP: Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining efforts to seek reconciliation among the country’s rival factions, and two bombing attacks in Baghdad killed at least 67 people.
• MSNBC: Iraq’s parliament on Monday shrugged off U.S. criticism and adjourned for a month, as key lawmakers declared there was no point waiting any longer for the prime minister to deliver Washington-demanded benchmark legislation for their vote.
I don’t see a lot of success from the surge so far.
The solution? Retired Army General Barry McCaffrey stated yesterday that:
• We need to give the surge a year to succeed
• The US Army will start to “unravel” by April 2008
• In order to prevent the Army from unraveling we need to pull US troops out of the major population areas.
So, in summary, the major population areas such as Baghdad are no more secure than they were before the surge. There is actually negative progress on the Iraqi political front. Iraqi politicians don’t seem to care. The surge is breaking the US Army. Not to mention the fact that all of this is costing US tax payers a fortune. Never-the-less, McCaffrey thinks that we need to give the surge another 4 to 6 months to really see if it will be successful.
It seems to me that we have seen enough “success”.
Our withdrawal from Iraq is inevitable. We can either start planning for it now so it can be done in a safe and orderly fashion or we can wait until the Army breaks down and bail out a la Vietnam.
You pick.
