Looking the New Way Forward

Well, apparently it is a foregone conclusion that tomorrow Bush is going to announce a "surge" of "fresh" US Troops into Iraq. First of all, do we have any "fresh" soldiers? Where are they going to come from? The top military official in the region, General John Abizaid, warned Congress in November last year that more troops are not the solution. Just about everyone is saying a military solution is not possible. Both Generals Colin Powell and Wesley Clark think more troops are a lousy idea. What does Bush do? Ignore General Powell. Ignore General Clark. Replace General Abizaid.

Don't we learn? Just last summer 14,000 U.S. troops moved into Baghdad to stabilize the place, and violence in Iraq actually escalated. The Pentagon’s own statistics show that weekly attacks increased by 15 percent while the number of Iraqi civilian casualties increased by 51 percent over the previous reporting period (which concluded in May 2006). The November 2006 version of the Department of Defense report, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, reported a 22 percent rise in violence from August to November 2006.

Well, McCain and Lieberman seem to think this is a good idea, but have they said what these troops will actually do? Congresswoman Heather Wilson, R-N.M., an Air Force veteran and member of the House Intelligence Committee who had just returned from Iraq, lambasted Bush's war leadership as lacking "a clarity of mission."

Oh really? Directly from this LA Times article: "defense officials say the U.S. commanders in Iraq have not settled on what that mission should be."

They apparently agree, however, that the new units should be given "clear instructions."

Is this really happening?