Michael Hirsch reports:
Most top U.S. military officials—even members of George W. Bush’s administration such as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley—did not recommend a “surge” or escalation of U.S. troops into Iraq when they were interviewed by the Iraq Study Group last fall, says group member Leon Panetta, a former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton. Instead of a surge—which the president plans to announce in a speech to the nation tomorrow—these officials recommended at the time that more U.S. advisers be embedded in Iraqi units, Panetta says. That later led the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton to come to the same conclusion, he says. Panetta also says that the officials interviewed knew that one of the Study Group’s central recommendations—that U.S. advisory teams in Iraq be quadrupled—was largely incompatible with a ramp-up of troops. The reason? In order to increase the number of U.S. advisory teams to that degree, American combat brigades must be withdrawn so the officers in those units can be turned into advisers. That is apparently not going to happen now, at least not quickly.
Notably, according to the interview even Lieutenant General David Petraeus wasn't on board for a surge when the ISG spoke to him six months ago. All of which reminds me, in essence, that I should link to Michael Hirsch more often. What's more, this Center for American Progress report on congressional options vis-a-vis military deployments is vital stuff that I'll probably write more on tomorrow.
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Heads in the Sand
Maybe Petraeus was faced with the decision to take the job or get out of Dodge, like the last two generals. It's either the carrot or the stick but they all keep rolling over for Dick Cheney. It is and has ever been that Bush as Cheney's puppet is forcing formerly independent voices into the role of Mandarins to the emperor. Speaking of generals, did you note the coverage of what generals in the field were advising Gates? Apparently one of the generals in Iraq to whom Gates spoke for "advice" made a point to the media that he gave advice on more than one "option" - including one option with NO surge. Clearly he was not being asked for advice but forced to hew to a party line to Cheney's first vampiric victim: ISG's Gates. Yet - where is the analysis by the media of all of these discrete bits of news? Cheney picks which sheep can get picked off from the fold, and no one sounds the alarm.
Posted by dsa | January 10, 2007 4:25 AM