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Now
Robert Gates' report to the White House
on his discussions in Iraq this past week is likely to provide
the missing ingredient for the troop ''surge'' into Iraq favored
by the ''decider'' team of Vice President Dick Cheney and President
George W. Bush.
When the understandable misgivings
voiced by top U.S. military officials made it obvious that the
surge cart had been put before the mission-objective horse, the
president was forced to concede, as he did at his press conference
on Wednesday, ``There's got to be a specific mission that can
be accomplished with the addition of more troops, before I agree
on that strategy.''
The president had led off the
press conference by heightening expectations for the Gates visit
to Iraq, noting that ''Secretary Gates is going to be an important
voice in the Iraq strategy review that's under way.'' No doubt
Gates was given the job of hammering out a ''specific mission''
with U.S. generals and Iraqi leaders, and he is past master at
sensing and delivering on his bosses' wishes.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
aides have given Western reporters an outline of what the ''specific
mission'' may look like. It is likely to be cast as implementation
of Maliki's ''new vision,'' under which U.S. troops would target
primarily Sunni insurgents in outer Baghdad neighborhoods, while
Iraqi forces would battle for control of inner Baghdad. A prescription
for bloodbath, it has the advantage, from the White House perspective,
of preventing the Iraqi capital from total disintegration until
Bush and Cheney are out of office.
Well before Tuesday, when Gates
flew off to Iraq, it was clear that Cheney and Bush remained
determined to stay the course (without using those words) for
the next two years. And the president's Washington Post interview
on Tuesday, as well has his press conference Wednesday strengthened
that impression. In his prepared statement for the Post, Bush
cast the conflict in Iraq as an enduring ''ideological struggle,''
the context in which he disclosed that he is now ``inclined to
believe that we do need to increase our troops, the Army and
Marines.''
Inconsistent
message
Lest the Post reporters miss
the point, the president added, ''I'm going to keep repeating
this over and over again, that I believe we're in an ideological
struggle . . . that our country will be dealing with for a long
time.'' In the same interview, he described ''sectarian violence''
in Iraq as ``obviously the real problem we face.''
At his press conference the
next day, the president repeated the same dual, inconsistent
message, which went unchallenged by the White House press corps.
Pick your poison: Do you prefer ''sectarian violence'' as the
real problem? Or is it ''ideological struggle?'' The White House
seems to be depending on a credulous press and Christmas-party
eggnog to get by on this.
Incoming Senate majority leader
Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last Sunday that he could ''go along''
with the widely predicted surge in U.S. troops in Iraq, but for
only two or three months. Is it conceivable that Reid doesn't
know that this is about the next two years -- not months? Egged
on by ''full-speed-ahead'' Cheney, Bush is determined that the
war not be lost while he is president. And he is commander-in-chief.
Events, however, are fast overtaking White House preferences
and are moving toward denouement well before two more years are
up.
`Get with
the program'
Virtually everyone concedes
that the war cannot be won militarily. And yet the so-called
''neoconservatives'' whom Bush has listened to in the past are
arguing strongly for a surge in troop strength. A generation
from now, our grandchildren will have difficulty writing history
papers on the oxymoronic debate now raging on how to surge/withdraw
our troops into/from the quagmire in Iraq.
The generals in Iraq may have
already been ordered by the White House to ''get with the program''
on surging. Just as they ''never asked for more troops'' at earlier
stages of the war, they are likely to be instant devotees of
a surge, once they smell the breezes from Washington. As for
Gates, it is a safe bet that whatever personal input he may dare
to offer will be dwarfed by Cheney's. Taking issue with ''deciders''
has never been Gates' strong suit.
Whether Gates realizes it or
not, the U.S. military is about to commit hara-kiri by ''surge.''
The generals should know that, once an ''all or nothing'' offensive
like the ''surge'' apparently contemplated has begun, there is
no turning back.
It will be ''victory'' over
the insurgents and the Shiite militias or palpable defeat, recognizable
by all in Iraq and across the world. Any conceivable ''surge''
would not turn the tide -- would not even stem it. We saw that
last summer when the dispatch of 7,000 U.S. troops to reinforce
Baghdad brought a fierce counter-surge -- the highest level of
violence since the Pentagon began issuing quarterly reports in
2005.
A major buildup would commit
the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to decisive combat in which there
would be no more strategic reserves to be sent to the front.
As Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway pointed out Monday,
``If you commit your reserve for something other than a decisive
win, or to stave off defeat, then you have essentially shot your
bolt.''
It will be a matter of win
or die in the attempt. In that situation, everyone in uniform
on the ground will commit every ounce of their being to ''victory,''
and few measures will be shrunk from.
Analogies come to mind: Stalingrad,
the Bulge, Dien Bien Phu, the Battle of Algiers.
It will be total war with the
likelihood of all the excesses and mass casualties that come
with total war. To force such a strategy on our armed forces
would be nothing short of immoral, in view of predictable troop
losses and the huge number of Iraqis who would meet violent injury
and death. If adopted, the ''surge'' strategy will turn out to
be something we will spend a generation living down.
Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.,
spoke for many of us on Sunday when George Stephanopoulos asked
him to explain why Smith had said on the Senate floor that U.S.
policy on Iraq may be ``criminal:''
``You can use any adjective
you want, George. But I have long believed in a military context,
when you do the same thing over and over again, without a clear
strategy for victory, at the expense of your young people in
arms, that is dereliction. That is deeply immoral.''
W. Patrick Lang, a retired Army colonel, served with
Special Forces in Vietnam, as a professor at West Point and as
defense intelligence officer for the Middle East.
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990
and Robert Gates' branch chief in the early 1970s. McGovern now
serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS). He is a contributor to Imperial
Crusades, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair.
They can be reached at: rrmcgovern@aol.com
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