The Best Laid Plans

Michael Gordon reports that the Pentagon is planning on staying in Iraq at least through 2009 and, like the Cylons, they have a plan. The best part is when "the classified plan . . . calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008." I wonder if the 2004-vintage plan called for the country to be mired in chaos by the summer of 2007? I'm guessing it didn't, though. It seems to me that the tricky part is going to be less the planning to restore security than the actual restoring of the security.

Photo by Sergent Jacob Smith, US Army

Comments

My plan for Iraq:

1) Write a better plan.

Posted by Whispers | July 24, 2007 10:51 AM

Hooray for Dear Leader and his Glorious Plan for the Victory of the People!

Posted by scarshapedstar | July 24, 2007 10:59 AM

The generals and bureaucrats are engaging in wishful thinking... but they're only following orders.

Posted by MattF | July 24, 2007 11:00 AM

Howard Johnson: You know, Nietzsche says, "Out of chaos comes order."
Olson Johnson: Oh, blow it out your ass, Howard.

Posted by steve duncan | July 24, 2007 11:02 AM

With respect to the Pentagon's plan, Underpants gnomes. 'nuff said.

Posted by jfaberuiuc | July 24, 2007 11:21 AM

This reminds me of Josef Stalin's glorious "Everyone Dies" 5-year plan, as first reported by the Onion in the mid-1930s.

Posted by norbizness | July 24, 2007 11:22 AM

In the beginning was The Plan

Posted by cleek | July 24, 2007 11:38 AM

A thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters for a thousand years couldn't come up with a better plan!

Posted by stm177 | July 24, 2007 11:53 AM

I see know earthly reason to assume that there was a plan in 2004, beyond, "delay the crisis until after the election."

Posted by rea | July 24, 2007 12:08 PM

Please don't just say They never had a Plan. They most certainly did: Hand the shit over to Achmed Chalibi and then party like it's 1989 (aka the Glorious Pre-Glaspe Era). That didn't really work out so good, and there was and is no appaarent Plan B, but the shithead Powers that Be did have a Cunning Plan.

Posted by ed | July 24, 2007 12:27 PM

The preznint's plan is to leave all plans to the generals, unless they have a bad plan.The generals had a plan. It was a bad plan.

Now, their plan is to save the Army. It's international reputation is shot. Every important leadership position in the DoD and the so-called intelligence community is held by a sailor or airman. CentCom, which includes Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afganistan, is being run by a sailor. The Army is weak. It has no leadership. It is about to collapse. Everything they do will be to save the Army. There's the Army plan.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | July 24, 2007 1:06 PM

Often, just to keep the peace in a human group, we let the most ego-driven, aggressive, and thuggish contender in our garden club, or church, or war torn country have his/her way. They want the top slot so badly, and are so convinced they deserve it, that they'll throw a tantrum and blow things sky high if they don't get it. So, we give in; de-escalate temporarily for the sake of the children. Then, we try to work at the margins, humoring the thug while covertly slipping her/him out the door or into a straightjacket.

Posted by ferd | July 24, 2007 1:09 PM

From Jules Crittenden, for some clearing of the air around here:

"Remember all the talk about Bush’s lack of a plan if the surge failed? What they meant, of course, was failure to to give Congress a Plan B, rapid exit, to prefer. Well, surge isn’t failing, though U.S. political will might. Congress is still agitating for a Plan B. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is doing its job. Planning for the next step."

"NYT neglects to mention that the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, quite unlike the more practical and significantly more aggressive surge plan, was at best an exercise in wishful thinking that envisioned resolving our troubles in Iraq by pleading with the then-ascendant Iranians, stroking the Arabs on Palestine, as if that actually had anything to do with Iraq, and a “responsible transition” that pulled Americans out of combat and pushed more resources into training Iraqis … neither fish nor fowl in the fight vs. run debate, but practically speaking, all fowl. The inclusion of some common elements of Baker-Hamilton as conditions change on the ground, elements the ISG did not necessarily originate, are no endorsement of it."

Time to get out and read around, folks. The surge can work, as Long as Reid & Co. keep batting .000%.

Posted by Donald Douglas | July 24, 2007 3:13 PM

Here are a few people batting .000: the president, his vice, his idiot secretary of state, his first secretary of defense (and apparently everyone who ever worked for him), his first secretary of state (at least while in that job), both his national security advisors (yes condi is a twofer), his attorney general and all of the good people at the Weekly Standard. Will the surge work? Time to read around, indeed. Dope.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | July 24, 2007 3:50 PM

I have a plan to clean up my apartment by the fall of 2009. Its details are among my most closely held secrets.

Posted by southpaw | July 24, 2007 8:13 PM