More Innocent Blood in Iraq

(thanks to Mick Gallagher)

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
New Bush Iraq Plan Presented by Neocon Think-Tank Friday.
Troop Boost will be "Long and Lasting," not a "Surge"
Created 01/05/2007 - 11:33am

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) - the think-tank at the heart of the Neocon movement - held a presentation Friday on what should be the foundation of the new Iraq strategy President Bush is expected to unveil next week. Sens. Joe Lieberman and John McCain will also speak at the event on the topic.

Basically, this is the whole "surge" thing we've been hearing about. The only problem is that it is not a surge at all; it's a lengthy boost. Frederick Kagan and Jack Keane, the authors of the AEI report, actually wrote an article last month explaining that "any troop increase must be large and lasting" (a short surge, of course, would "play into the enemy's hands" and "virtually ensure defeat").

Looking deeper into the study, the Kagan/Keane strategy is not a plan to move forward so we can leave, it's a plan to start all over again from scratch. They actually advocate abandoning political development and Iraqi forces training to focus solely on what they call "clear and hold" by American forces of "critical terrain." Only then, they say, can we start thinking about transferring control to Iraqis.

Solely under this plan will the 3000+ American and countless Iraqi deaths thus far have been completely in vain. Worse, even more people will die. Even Kagan and Keane predict in their study "increasing casualties to levels higher than before the start of security operations" - and that's in response to the fourth and final phase of their approach! Ironically, they even use the word "surge" to describe the rise in deadly violence they predict by extremists in the other phases. Those looking for Vietnam comparisons will find the prediction of an insurgent "Tet Offensive" on page 31 of the draft report.

The insanity of Bush's acceptance of these ideas is that they are coming from the very people he listened to from the beginning that got us into this quagmire. After their predictable failure, nearly everyone else in the world - including even many conservative Republicans - knows we need to finally redeploy our combat forces. Yet Bush is giving the AEI Neocons a mulligan they sorely do not deserve and the voters resoundingly rejected last November.