[inteldump] Phillip Carter: What to do?

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Posted by Phillip Carter:
What to do?
http://inteldump.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2006_10_15-2006_10_21.shtml#1161359087


   All of the major papers this morning lead with the statement from Maj.
   Gen. William Caldwell that the U.S. efforts to secure Baghdad have
   fallen short of expectations. According to [1]John Burns of the New
   York Times:

     BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 19 â The United States military command in Iraq
     acknowledged on Thursday that its 12-week-old campaign to win back
     control of Baghdad from sectarian death squads and insurgents had
     failed to reduce violence across the city. A spokesman for the
     command said intensive discussions were under way between American
     and Iraqi officials on ways to ârefocusâ the effort, which American
     officials have placed at the heart of their war strategy.
     In one of the most somber assessments of the war by American
     commanders, a statement read by the spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B.
     Caldwell IV, said the campaign had been marked by increasing
     attacks on American troops and a spike in combat deaths. Attacks
     soared by 22 percent, he said, during the first three weeks of
     Ramadan, the holy month now nearing its end. With three new combat
     deaths announced on Thursday, the number of American troops who
     have lost their lives in October rose to 73, representing one of
     the sharpest surges in military casualties in the past two years.
     General Caldwell said American troops were being forced to return
     to neighborhoods, like Dora in southwestern Baghdad, that they had
     sealed off and cleared as part of the security campaign because
     âextremistsâ fighting back had sent sectarian violence soaring
     there. The security plan sent heavy deployments of American troops
     into troubled neighborhoods, reversing the previous policy, which
     was to allow Iraqi troops to police the capital.
     "The violence is indeed disheartening," General Caldwell said.
     While the sweeps have contained violence in some areas, over all,
     he said, the campaign to gain control of the city "has not met our
     overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of
     violence." As a result, he said, "We are working very closely with
     the government of Iraq to determine how to best refocus our
     efforts."

   And in the Washington Post, [2]Tom Ricks and Michael Abramowitz add
   that this conclusion about Operation Together Forward, the
   deteriorating situation in Iraq, has left the White House in a bit of
   a pickle:

     The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's
     Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next
     month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration
     to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to
     lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others
     involved in policymaking.
     Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that
     the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a
     stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame.
     Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the
     administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting
     its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to
     keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence.
     On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates are hammering
     Republican candidates for backing a failed Iraq policy, and GOP
     defense of the war is growing muted. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal
     poll released this week showed that voters are more confident in
     Democrats' ability to handle the Iraq war than the Republicans' --
     a reversal from the last election.
     Few officials in either party are talking about an immediate
     pullout of U.S. combat troops. But interest appears to be growing
     in several broad ideas. One would be some kind of effort to divide
     the country along regional lines. Another, favored by many
     Democrats, is a gradual withdrawal of troops over a set period of
     time. A third would be a dramatic scaling-back of U.S. ambitions in
     Iraq, giving up on democracy and focusing only on stability.

   So what's going on? Or, put more bluntly, WTF? I see it as very
   significant that these comments from MG Caldwell came out in his
   prepared text, not in response to Q&A. I deduce from that fact that
   these comments were deliberated and approved at the highest levels in
   Iraq, and possibly in Washington. I'm still trying to figure out why,
   after so many statements that we were succeeding, the U.S. would
   decide to say that we needed a course correction. Here are a few
   guesses:
   1) The senior U.S. leadership in Iraq is helping the White House
   diminish and manage expectations in advance of the 2006 midterm
   elections. By lowering the bar for performance, the military provides
   factual support for Republican candidates who say we're doing as best
   we can in Iraq.
   2) Amb. Khalilzad and Gen. Casey desperately want to reframe the
   debate from "stay the course vs. cut and run" to something more
   realistic. But to do that, they first need to give everyone a sharp
   reality check about what's going in Iraq. This goes hand-in-hand with
   the upcoming release of the Baker Study Group report.
   3) The senior leadership in Iraq is simply tired of spinning. They did
   not clear these statements with Washington, and are way out in front
   of where the White House and Pentagon want to be.
   4) Amb. Khalilzad and Gen. Casey want to push the Maliki government to
   do more, so they are indicating with this statement that U.S. forces
   have reached the limit of their capability to provide security for
   Iraq. If so, they're playing a very high stakes game of poker.
   5) Least probably, Gen. Casey and Amb. Khalilzad are simply at their
   wit's end, and they have decided to be as blunt as possible.
   What do you all think ?

References

   1. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html
   2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901907.html