Exit Strategy

[tw]

Another vehicle bombed. More dead westerners. This one near the secure green zone so that reporters could dare to step out and review the damage. First thing noted by Dexter Filkins of the NY Times (interviewed by the PBS Newshour) is how Iraqis show no remorse for those dead. He is quite blunt about how bad Iraqi attitudes have become in only the last three months. So bad that reporters don't even dare leave or go to a border area where a 'wedding party' is said to have been slaughtered by American helicopters.

About the only thing that the Iraqis and Americans agree on is that Americans attacked something and 40 Iraqis are dead. Something like 80% to 90% of the dead were women and children even though Americans say it was an "insurgant" meeting. Maybe. Maybe some insurgants got married. After all, a large majority of Iraqis dislike Americans.

Why has Iraq turned so bad so fast? It was obvious once we eliminated the rhetoric from the White House and its sound bytes - ie Rush Limbaugh. We had 6 month to get it right. Instead we sent in people so mentally deficient as to even disband the Iraqi Army and Police. And yes I do mean so mentally deficient as to not even learn how a WWII American army avoided same problems in Germany. We fired anyone (out of stupidity and political rhetoric reasons) who could have made the electricity and other utilities work. Why? Only because to have such jobs, they had to be Baath party members. Therefore they were not good enough to make the country work again. (But they were good enough to kill Americans in response).

And so we now come to US elections. Has the administration done a full analysis to get something fixed before November? We consult Bob Woodward. This administration does absolutely no analysis. Somehow a gut feeling is sufficient to make all decisions. Bob Woodward is quite explicity about how George Jr and Co make decisions. That gut feeling says the Iraqi government takes over on 30 June.

Well if Americans are so disliked by virtually the entire Iraqi nation, then we beter just pull out. Obviously, that would be a defeat. So we must first hand over enough power so that any impending disaster will be blamed on others. Is that the smell of Vietnamation - deja vue? Sound like George Jr has his exit strategy.

We force a provisional authority government to be in charge no matter what they say or can do. We leave them with an Army that sets new records for running or refusing to fight - as if the S VietNam army was bad. We try to drop things at the feet of UN officials; declare it is their problem. We failed to get NATO to take this problem off our hands. We blame Chalabi so that if things go bad, he is no longer George Jr's (and Richard Perl's) choosen leader.

In many circles of political reporters, there is much speculation as to how much we will drop and back out - in a hope that others can take blame for any impending disaster or civil war. Iraq has become so bad that even reporters could not go out to confirm military reports since most of 2004. Iraqis that much hate foreign occupiers. Of the 2000 reconstruction projects, only 42 remain ongoing. Things are that bad.

I made a comment about the only few hooligans who ripped down Saddam's statue. Others speculated that most feared to come out only because they feared Saddam even though Americans dominated the streets. Many European towns in WWII did get retaken by the Nazis. It was that dangerous to wave American and British flags when the allies rolled in. And yet those people really did want to be liberated. Those people did flock into the streets. I said then and I say again today - there were few people welcoming the Americans. Marines first arriving in Baghdad said it best. One Baghdad neighborhood would welcome us and the next one would despise us. Neighborhoods would run hot and cold. But more interesting - those Marines entered on the Shi'ite side of Baghdad - among the people that were suppose to most welcome Americans!

That was the reality. If the people really so hated Saddam, then that plaza in Baghdad would have been packed with people now that the Americans were clearly in town. They did not celebrate because .... well we have the facts today. We liberated people who did not want to be liberated - because our president lied.

At least back then some Iraqis welcomed an American liberation. These were widely touted as proof that Americans were loved. Now that number is near zero. This is exactly what happens when a nation is attacked without a 'smoking gun' reason. It looks like we are doomed to make this mistake every 30 years. A Pearl Harbor type attack that was not justified by a declaration of war or a united UN Resolution. ie Somolia - did we not learn even from that trivial operation? This is exactly what happens when leaders lie to the people and the people believe myths such as aluminun tubes for WMDs (even though advanced physics labs said otherwise) and 'rape room' nonsense. What we have is a president who lies mostly because he cannot even be bothered to first learn facts (ie the stupid manned mission to Mars that is not even based upon science). We now have that even from the Bob Woodward book that George Jr says he liked. In hindsight, I doubt the president read Woodward's book. If he did, well then why did he not bother to read the Presidental Daily Bulletin warning explicitly of the WTC attack?

How wrong was the reason for this Iraq war? Amazon.com is doing majore sales because of all the non-political insiders who are telling us facts about George Jr. Damn. Osama bin Laden attacks the WTC. So we leave him alone and go attack Saddam? Add to the published list of critics - Gen Zinni (former commander of Central Command) and Tom Clancy. Look folks. Even a civilian who is well versed in military strategy, tactics, and history - Tom Clancy - is now critical of the mental midget president.

And so this president will start a series of speeches to make his case for Iraq. Will he apologize for making so many mistakes? Really? He could not even apologize for the toruture in Abu Ghradi. Will he admit to any other blunders? That we know he will not. But we suspect he will start a campaign to separate George Jr from the turmoil in Iraq. He must blame others. An exit strategy. All that remains is this question. Upon who will he cast blame?

This is a question that will be asked often. Who is going to get blamed for the turmoil in Iraq?

[richlevy]

Originally posted by tw
This is a question that will be asked often. Who is going to get blamed for the turmoil in Iraq?

I don't think that there is anyone who does not believe this war was driven by the adminstration. Congress gave them the authority, but a lot of it was based on the 'trust me' principle.

Unless some democratic paradise blooms in Iraq, history will not be kind to Bush or the US.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Easy, declare a huge victory and go home.
What are they going to do, say no, no, you didn't win, come back.

[depmats]

[quote]Originally posted by tw
[b] First thing noted by Dexter Filkins of the NY Times (interviewed by the PBS Newshour) is how Iraqis show no remorse for those dead. He is quite blunt about how bad Iraqi attitudes have become in only the last three months.

Just a quick note - in my experience in KSA (Saudi) they never did give 2 shits about the dead or near dead. In traffic accidents which are common and brutal over there, people wouldn't pull over to help because "if Allah wants them to live they will live" Just a different way of thinking than most of us have. Of course these are the same people that would be running 120km/hr and just take there hands off their wheel to look in the backseat for something. Damn cars aren't as effective as camels at staying on the road. (Not a racial joke - just an observation from my own experiences)

[Radar]

Here's a good look at our Iraqi Exit Strategy...

[jaguar]

it?ll just get added to the big circle of things the US fucked up then everyone can start taking bets on what fuckup this fuckup will spawn, it all moves in circles.

example of a circle
US dumps 3 billion of weaponary on afghanistan to kill the commies, leave small backward islamic state full of warlords armed to the teeth then acts shocked when it spawns hundreds of terrorists. Terrorists blow something up, us wanders in and gives billions of aid to anotther bunch of warlords (look up the prez`s bio some time).

[Kitsune]

We had 6 month to get it right.

What? Let me get this straight: You expected the US to deploy an army overseas, overthrow a dictator, rebuild the infrastructure we blew to pieces, and restore civillian happiness in a mere six months? I'm not happy with how things are being handled, but I did expect there to be a lot more widespread fighting than the small skrimishes that we see on a daily basis between the US and "insurgents" (read: "Iraqi citizens"). I'm actually taken aback that the oil wells aren't on fire at this time.

That gut feeling says the Iraqi government takes over on 30 June.

I actually think a new leader will meet this date for installation, but my prediction is that he won't be able to dodge bullets and RPGs successfully for more than two weeks. And, as a country, we need to get used to this right now, as we're in Iraq for the long haul and I think that our the administration expected nothing less than a minimum of five years. I also expect that we aren't planning on leaving Afghanistan within the next ten, as we haven't even started to think about rebuilding that place in comparison to Iraq.

I'm quite sure that all the people that planned this out from the beginning were in full agreement with these ideas, too. We didn't go to the Middle East to remove Saddam, rebuild the place, then leave. We went there to get a foothold and stay there in an attempt to gain a little more control and keep Iran and Syria in check.

[tw]

Originally posted by Kitsune
We had 6 month to get it right.

What? Let me get this straight: You expected the US to deploy an army overseas, overthrow a dictator, rebuild the infrastructure we blew to pieces, and restore civillian happiness in a mere six months? ...
I also expect that we aren't planning on leaving Afghanistan within the next ten, as we haven't even started to think about rebuilding that place in comparison to Iraq.

1) We were very careful to not attack power plants, water treatment factilities, communication buildings, and other infastructure. The infastructure was fundamentally intact. This was done intentionally to only disable the functions but leave the expensive stuff intact. One month after the Gulf War, and with those factilities attacked; still, Saddam could have full electricity, et al working in one month. We had big explosions on palaces and other irrelevant factilities - places irrelevant to the infastructure. And like in all wars, the planning for surrender is conducted long before the military victory is achieved. Did we not learn that even in WWII history books? Of course. But this war was fought without any such plans - as even evident in the after action reports from Third Infantry.

We well should have had a functioning army, a working police force, full electricity, etc all working in six months. But instead we fired all the smart people, disbanded the army and police, ignored warning even from State Dept studies conducted one year previous, and provided insufficient troops without even orders to stop the looting. IOW we created the mess by not even listening to what Pentagon Generals were saying. At least 200,000 troops for two years. How do you turn on the electricity when the electricity expert is only a tank commander? What does an artillery officer know about hospitals?

We did not have the people, skills, or intent to have Iraq functioning in six months. We did not even have Bremmer assigned for months afterwards. Administration was that ad hoc and unplanned. No matter what the orders were at field level, it could not happen without intent from highest levels of the US government and without people that have necessary skills. We kept both out of Iraq. Even Saddam previously accomplished same in only one month.

2) Afghanistan is a war justified by the smoking gun. But we are not there. We bailed out before a strategic objective was achieved - Al Qaeda in general and bin Laden in specific. Afghanistan is a NATO problem because we bailed out early to invade Iraq. Afghanistan should be a ten year project for the US. But somehow, the public believed presidential lies such as "Saddam is responsible for the attack on the WTC". And so one-half of Afghanistan has again fallen into the control of anti-Americans. Again, we bailed out before we had solved a problem that virtually every nation said we had the total right to conquer and solve.

I expect the army to finish removing our enemies and not go off on some boondoogle that was no threat to the US. Even the commander of Central Command was furious when George Jr ordered him to make plans to invade Iraq only five months after the WTC destruction. As a smart man, that general understood that Afghanistan was not solved.

Even moreso, Iraq was no threat. The list of generals and other political experts saying so is quite long. It includes General Norman Swartzkopf, most every previous Joint Chief of Staff, and Brent Scowcroft. Some bluntly say we had Saddam cornered in a box; no threat to anyone. We now know they were correct. So why did we not finish in a country were a real threat still exists? Afghanistan. Again, failures directly traceable to top management in the White House.

Lets keep two facts staight. 1) We could have done in six months what Saddam previously did in one. And 2) the real threat still exists - in Afghanistan where we failed to accomplish the strategic objective. In fact we still are not trying to fix the real problem - Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. All problems directly traceable to the same president with a long history of reading little and just knowing (from his gut and his neocon agenda) what the right thing is to do. Clearly his sources of information must be extra-terrestrial because he is not consulting the people who know the facts.

Which brings us right back to the George Jr exit strategy. Bail fast enough so that when things get worse, then others can be blamed. Already Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez is on the blame list. Originally on the list for a fourth star, it is now apparent that he will not even get command of Southern Command. Another someone that the administration can blame when he was only doing the impossible as ordered by George Jr and Rumsfeld. That is apparently the exit strategy. Bail and blame others.

One interesting point. That means the administration finally decided to stop treating Iraq as if it was some sort of prize. The new exit strategy.