over 75% of the Iraqis who assisted the US surge, in the Anbar awakening:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awakening_movements_in_Iraq

are now being targeted, rather than hired, by the Iraqi government.

not good. expect consequences.

Good stuff. I swear I've seen this one before elsewhere a while ago, though obviously not on TV.

Overreaches a bit -- he's had to eat crow on the violence, but it was increasing every month until November 2007, and he's still saying the surge hasn't brought about the political reconciliation it was supposed to, and therefore it didn't "work". Also, he often points out that the Anbar Awakening deserves a lot of credit for reducing the violence, as well as the deal cut with Al Sadr and, saddest of all, because most of the ethnic cleansing has been done.

The bit from 2003-2004 where he argues against timelines is golden, they should just focus on that one, because he's going to have a harder time walking that one back.

I'd love to see McCain try to beat up Obama for voting to fund the war. What, by chance, do you think McCain would have done if he'd voted against funding it? Applauded his moral stance for peace?

It's a good way to change the subject from whether or not staying or leaving is what people want to do, which McCain desperately needs to do, because there aren't too many people who want to stay.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Excerpt from the Obamessiah's speech:
I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
Apologizing for the USA not being perfect...to Germany. GERMANY!
Does he think Germany is one of the 57 US states?


Europe. EUROPE. He was in Germany, but Germany is in Europe. The majority of his speech was clearly directed to Europe (when it wasn't addressed to the world).

57 states! lawl i see what you did thur u r so edgy. u forgot israels best friend.

yadda yadda, iraq/pakistan border anyone? genocide in somalia anyone? president putin of germany? anbar awakening caused by the surge (which included time traveling troops!)

shut up, moron.

The Bush Administration would like you to believe that talking to Iran, to Hamas, to Hezboallah or even to Al Qaeda is a form of weakness, a sign of defeat, that somehow by mere contact the effort is lost.

That is a fallacious lie. One keeps his friends close and his enemies closer. Enemy contact was maintain during the Cold War with Russia abating the Cuban Missile Crisis, during the Vietnam War with Kissinger trying to broker a peace deal with NVA and VC. Even now in Iraq the administration is talking to Sadr Army, The Bader Corps and the various Sheikh and tribals groups that form the fragile Awakening Council keeping peace in the Anbar province.

My belief is that the Bush Administration would like to keep it so because it makes escalation of hostilities so much easier. It's the stupidest fucking shit ever. Imagine if during the Cuban missile crisis, JFK just stopped talking to the Soviets. There would be no USSR, USA, Cuba or much of the world anymore.

I agree berating him over the 100 year remark is somewhat misleading but obviously politically effective at building crowd fervour and support.

The hard question that should be asked of him, is why the current climate suggests any possible political reconciliation in the foreseeable future between the various Sunni and Shiite sects and how exactly military occupation and inherently US casualties are helping facilitate that end-goal of national autonomy through this political progress.

Merely quelling violence in occupied regions does not achieve this. Aligning and arming the Iraqi Sunnis against Al Qaeda in Anbar may increase long term stability from the eradication of radicals, but again has little to do with political reconciliation.

Some of those seem related to me, 9 8 and 1 in particular. A good part of the quiet in Anbar was because we bought off some who had been fighting us so far, problem is the deal isn't complete and doesn't look like it ever will be. They were promised government jobs as a part of stopping attacks and have yet to see them in better than token amounts or positions, from what I've read frustration is already growing over it. So far the US has been paying them instead but that can't last forever and it isn't just money they wanted. It's acceptance, power and status.

If the Shia government doesn't offer the promised jobs to the Sunni of Anbar the whole thing is likely to come apart, and with them better armed and rested for the break. If they can't get the political end moving we've done nothing more than to buy enough time to see it come apart for the next President, if it lasts even that long. Personally I doubt it will last that long without some progress.

It's become part of Bush's surge propaganda to equate sectarian insurgent groups in Iraq with Al-Qaeda, especially given OBL's comments in his new video.

"A numerically small but politically significant component of the insurgency is non-Iraqi, mostly in a faction called Al Qaeda-Iraq (AQ-I). Increasingly in 2007, U.S. commanders have seemed to equate AQ-I with the insurgency, even though most of the daily attacks are carried out by Iraqi Sunni insurgents. AQ-I was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7, 2006, U.S. airstrike.

AQ-I has been a U.S. focus from very early on in the war because, according to U.S. commanders in April 2007, it is responsible for about 90% of the suicide bombings against both combatant and civilian targets. AQ-I is discussed in detail in CRS Report RL32217, Iraq and Al Qaeda, by Kenneth Katzman.

In large parts of Anbar Province and now increasingly in parts of other Sunni
provinces, Sunni tribes are trying to limit Al Qaeda’s influence, which they believe is detrimental to their own interests, by cooperating with U.S. counter-insurgency efforts. In other cases, there have been clashes between AQ-I and Iraqi insurgent groups, such as in June 2007 in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, apparently representing differences over targets and AQ-I’s reported abuses of Iraqis who do not fully cooperate with AQ-I.

U.S. commanders say they are trying to enlarge this wedge between Sunni insurgents and AQ-I by selectively cooperating with Sunni insurgents - a strategy that is controversial because of the potential of the Sunni Iraqis to later resume fighting U.S. forces and Iraqi Shiites. The strategy is reported to have led to increased tensions between Maliki and the lead U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus."

- CRS Report for Congress : Iraq Post-Saddam Security and Governance.

This of course is perfect for both Bush and OBL.

After years of talking about sectarian violence, Bush can now fear monger that leaving Iraq would create a terrorist state formed of the AlQ's Caliphate, giving him more blank checks to continue the surge and the war. Think January 2009.

While OBL can garner more support from radicals since America's president is giving him such constant praises about military operations in Iraq. Sending political bombshells via videotape in safety somewhere in the area between Pakistan and Afghanistan slowly rebuilding his organization, preparing for more attacks avoiding the attention of the US military and special forces because they are all in Iraq. He even had time to color his beard.

So both are playing into each others objectives at the expense of American and Iraqi lives.

Robert Parry covers this eloquently in Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn.

Over the last few years there were reports that showed the US military dropping recruitment requirements and offering waivers in exchange for military service.

Reports of the Army unable to supply sufficiently armored vehicles and other equipment against IED threats, pre and post surge. Soldiers are now familiarizing combat driving techniques using simulators because there is a shortage of M-1114s.

America does possess formidable military forces, but we are talking about soldiers on the ground currently not total combined forces; which would take into account navy and air.

Extended tours (from 12 to 15 months), with multiple returns are common, fatigue is taking it's toll. A secondary surge has already taken place to bolster troop numbers, by sending more combat brigades and extending tours for troops already in Iraq.

Troop levels would thus increase to around 200,000 by the end of this year, a record since the start of OIF. These numbers of course do not include the large number of private military contractors in Iraq, also surging in numbers, paid for by US taxpayers under contract from the DOD. Meanwhile the Army is shedding officers at an alarming rate, 44% left, the highest loss rate in 3 decades.

With regards to the Al Anbar success stories, one must remember that is only occurring because previous Sunni insurgents have turned against Al Qaeda, making US forces the most convenient allies in driving out foreign radical Islamic terrorists. The relationship is tenacious, it also means the US forces now have to bolster previous Sunni insurgents and make them components of the Iraqi government, which is filled with Shia militias who do not want minority Sunni influence.

"To bolster that case, Bush made his own surprise visit to a U.S. military base in Anbar province on Sept. 3 to tout growing cooperation between Sunni tribal leaders and American forces.

But the sheiks didn't seek out U.S. help because an additional 30,000 U.S. troops had been shipped to Iraq. Rather, the sheiks had found themselves caught between al-Qaeda extremists on one side and Shiite-dominated government forces on the other.

The Americans became the enemy and erstwhile friend, respectively, of my enemies – and thus an ally of convenience for the Sunni sheiks.

Indeed, the Anbar situation could be viewed as evidence that the political and ethnic divisions of Iraq continue to deepen – with Sunni traditionalists growing only more desperate. But these shifting sands of allegiances have become the foundation upon which Bush is building his case for open-ended U.S. military involvement in Iraq."

- How VIPs get 'Brainwashed' on Iraq by Robert Parry.

The important thing to consider is; will such success be replicated in other provinces? Will the forces join into the Shia dominated government which opposes Sunni influence? Thus how long will this commitment last. All questions to which officers within the armed forces cannot answer, because the situation is that fragile.

After posing gamely with the troops at the Al-Asad base, Bush celebrated the return of Sunni areas to the control of U.S.-armed militias-composed largely of former insurgents who have at least temporarily decided that their Shiite rivals, currently in control of the central government, are a more pressing enemy than the American occupiers. Speaking of one such group of Sunnis trained by the Americans and dubbed the “Volunteers” by their instructors, a U.S. soldier told The Washington Post, “I think there is some risk of them being Volunteers by day and terrorists by night.”

The National Intelligence Estimate reported that Iraqi goverment is precarious, violence remains high, a decrease in Baghdad violence due to sectarian cleansing. The Government Accountability Report, a congressionally mandated report, showed that the Iraqi goverment met 3, partially 4, and did not meet 11 of its 18 benchmarks. The NIE was tweaked favorably by Gen. David Petraeus, the GAO was attacked by the White House as being 'inadmissible', 'harsh' and 'locked into failure'.

With regards to your comments about losing Iraq on principle, it was never a war for us to win in any sense, it was a systematic fear mongering campaign driven by PowerPoint presentations with aerial photographs about WMDs that got us into Iraq.

After 4 years of being constantly lied to about hostilities ending, turning the corner, mission accomplished, and witnessing the daily ineptness of the way the current administration has and is handling the war we are again on the brink of giving this administration another pass on the war up to 2009 since the current surge will remain up to and until April 2008. To have President Bush then compare the Iraq war to Vietnam; As Andrew Sullivan put it:

His speech yesterday actually managed to shock. You might think that, in wartime, a president would acknowledge what no one denies is a terribly grim decision in front of us - whether to pursue a clearly unwinnable war in order to govern a clearly ungovernable country - or withdraw and redeploy in ways that will doubtless lead to even more bloodshed. But no. There is no gray here; no awful decision for the least worst option; not acknowledgment of his own moral culpability for such a disaster. There is instead an accusation that those who reach a different judgment about the course of the war are, in fact, enemies of the troops:

Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed.

To place all the troops into the position of favoring one strategy ahead of us rather than another, and to accuse political opponents of trying to "pull the rug out from under them," is a, yes, fascistic tactic designed to corral political debate into only one possible patriotic course. It's beneath a president to adopt this role, beneath him to coopt the armed services for partisan purposes. It should be possible for a president to make an impassioned case for continuing his own policy in Iraq, without accusing his critics of wanting to attack and betray the troops. But that would require class and confidence. The president has neither.

For more I would refer you to an excellent post - Thirteen Ways not to think about the Iraq war.

"There is no clear plan for the deployment of the extra 21,000 troops. Most will be stationed in Iraq and the Anbar province. There is no additional task given to these other then blanket security operations which would only mean exposing the troops to more hostile fire."

Yes, it will expose more soldiers to hostile fire. The fact remains however that casualties throughout the Iraq War have been remarkably light given the nature and length of operations we have been conducting there. Over 3,000 deaths and 20,000+ wounded looks horrible on paper, and is certainly tragic, but the reality is that the casualty rates are not yet high enough to have any significant impact on combat effectiveness. If a given Rifle company loses 7 men and has about 25 wounded over the course of a one year tour (these were the casualties sustained in a cavalry company commanded by a friend of mine), there will be very little impact on the overall combat effectiveness of said company. Yes, casualties are bad but so long as they do not significantly impact combat effectiveness they have no tactical or operational impact upon the conduct of a war. They do however further sour public opinion, but at this stage of the game I think the people who will only support a war below a certain casualty threshold have long since stopped supporting the Iraq war.

"At the same time you are dropping an influx of troops into a country where 70% of the population looks upon your forces as occupiers. All that would do is unify the resistance and insurgency against coalition forces even more."

Certainly true, but at the same time the Iraqis are absolutely desperate for some kind of security and increasingly do not care who provides it:

"Now, it's one thing to say that polls show -- American commanders say it -- that most Iraqis, 80 percent of them, do not like being occupied, true. But if you ask any individual Iraqi in any of these areas whether he would rather see more of American troops, they almost invariably say, "Yes," unless they're members of the Mahdi army or one of the militias, because that's what brings calm to the area." -John Burns, New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june07/baghdad_01-10.html

"It is best I do not use her name. Any Iraqi known to have contact with foreigners is at risk. And security is the only issue that matters now, she says. "Everything depends on it. I am not worrying about democracy, about the economy. The security comes first, and we've lost that." ' -Andrew North, BBC Correspondent, Baghdad

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6192815.stm

The point is that it really does not seem like the Iraqis really care who provides security, at this point, so long as they don't need to be constantly afraid of getting kidnapped or killed by a carbomb. We can talk about cultural differences and national pride etc. but I know that if I had been living in such conditions for several years, I'd be willing to be under "foreign occupation" if it meant I could stop being constantly afraid for myself and my family. Based upon what the above two, and other correspondents are reporting I'd say that the average Iraqi is in a similar state of mind.

"Either way, what will that force increase do without a clear working plan? Are US forces going to be used to actively suppress the Sunni or Shi'a militias?"

That's my understanding. Due to a lack of US and Iraqi National troops a security vacuum was created in Iraq. The Sunni insurgency was able to take such firm root because of said vacuum. The Sunni insurgency eventually began targeting Shiites, which prompted the Shiites to form militias for their own protection. Reprisal killings sparked reprisal killings and the result is a Sunni-Shi'a civil war on top of the original Sunni insurgency. The idea behind the surge is to provide sufficient US forces to establish joint security sites in the key neighborhoods of Baghdad that will take the place of the various militias. If you can get a (relatively) impartial third party providing security in lieu of sectarian militias, you have a possibility of slowing down or even stopping the escalation of reprisal killings.

There is no clear plan for the deployment of the extra 21,000 troops. Most will be stationed in Iraq and the Anbar province. There is no additional task given to these other then blanket security operations which would only mean exposing the troops to more hostile fire.

At the same time you are dropping an influx of troops into a country where 70% of the population looks upon your forces as occupiers. All that would do is unify the resistance and insurgency against coalition forces even more.

Either way, what will that force increase do without a clear working plan? Are US forces going to be used to actively suppress the Sunni or Shi'a militias? Are they going to be used to force a negotiation?

I agree that a force addition looks good on paper, but it looked good on paper back in Vietnam, the additional force elements there were just not enough to back out of what turned into a civil war. The same situation is being repeated here.

If the 21,000 force commitment fails. What then? The US will have no maneuvering and there will be another crushing morale plummet as US forces will pull out like they did in South Vietnam.

In reply to your comment:
“A couple comments.

As Rickegee said, McCain is in the race to win. His shift to the right in order to make it through the primaries can only be expected after what he experienced at the hands of the Bush campaign in NC in 2000. At any rate, his compromising of principles in order to get elected is the exact same behavior displayed by his chief opponent: Hilary.

q[I find his views on the surge dis-speakable even though hes a veteran of the Vietnam war.]q

He's been for more troops since the rioting after the fall of Baghdad. The fundamental element of any counterinsurgency operation is security. Since the enemy is unconventional you cannot destroy him outright, but with sufficient security you can deny his ability to operate freely. The denial of free operation is the foundation from which an insurgency can be defeated; without it, the insurgency will only grow. McCain's position since 2003 has been that there are not sufficient troops to provide that essential level of security, and accordingly additional forces should be deployed to Iraq.

At this stage in the game, the 21,000 troop surge is all the extra manpower we have to commit. It probably won't be sufficient but it's worth a try. The National Intelligence Estimate released today makes it pretty damn clear that a withdrawal conducted over the next 12-18 month would cause the situation in Iraq to worsen precipitously, further destabilizing the region. In the face of that we have to find some way to stabilize Iraq, possibly through a soft partition or by some other means. Having 5 additional brigades in Iraq at the very least will give us additional flexibility. If they are able to improve the security situation sufficiently to allow for political and economic developments, so much the better. If not, the additional forces provides flexibility for whatever different strategy we attempt to pursue. ”