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The 'Surge' Bait and Switch
WASHINGTON—Here's a surprise: Remember how we were told that if we just waited until the fall, we'd see that George W. Bush's "surge" was working in Iraq? Well, now it turns out that we shouldn't expect answers in September after all.
White House spokesman Tony Snow was purposeful on Wednesday in stomping, trampling, tap-dancing upon and otherwise giving a definitive beat-down to any expectations of a serious, fact-based reassessment of Iraq policy in the fall. Never mind that the White House raised those expectations in the first place.
AP Photo / Charlie Riedel Soldiers from the 1st Division, 4th Brigade run across a snow-covered prairie as they train in preparation of the troop surge, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007.The September scenario has been a rhetorical mainstay for the administration and its supporters, a major argument for ignoring all the bad news from Iraq and giving Bush's troop escalation a chance to work. Let's wait for Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man who's now running the war, to submit his progress report. At that point, went the White House argument, the "way forward" would become clear.
The fog of war seems to have closed back in. "I have warned from the very beginning about expecting some sort of magical thing to happen in September," Snow told the White House press corps, whose collective recollection was somewhat different. "No, I'm not. What I'm saying is in September you'll have an opportunity to have metrics."
Actually, there are plenty of "metrics" already. A Pentagon report, released Wednesday, finds that since the U.S. troop escalation began, the overall level of violence in Iraq has not decreased and civilian casualties have actually risen slightly. There has been a decline in violence in Baghdad and Anbar province—the areas where most of the 28,700 extra "surge" troops are deployed—but an increase in other parts of the country.
The rest of the report holds few surprises for anyone who has been paying attention. The Iraqi government is no closer to a political agreement that Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds can all live with (assuming such an agreement is even theoretically possible). Militias, not government forces, continue to rule much of Baghdad and the rest of the country. "Sectarian friction" is the euphemism du jour for civil war.
And that, mind you, is the assessment of the U.S. military, not some bunch of "cut and run" naysayers. U.S. casualties, meanwhile, are increasing markedly as "surge" troops deploy into hot spots. The only real non-negative news out of Iraq is the dog that didn't bark, at least not yet: The latest bomb attack on the revered Shiite mosque in Samarra has not, as of this writing, triggered the spasm of unrestrained sectarian bloodletting that everyone fears.
In that context, it's easy to understand why the White House would want everyone to forget about the whole September thing. It's obvious that Iraq certainly won't look much better by then, and may look considerably worse.
Snow said he was emphasizing "metrics" because he knew that in September, "some people are going to try to make the argument, if the job is not done and if they haven't perfected it and if they haven't achieved all the—then it's a failure. I wanted to guard against that." Precisely. In the world of retail, this is known as bait and switch.
The thing is that no one should be surprised. On Iraq, Bush has been nothing if not consistent. Never has he given any indication of seriously considering a real change of policy. Every grudging concession, every ballyhooed initiative, every single announced change has been on the margins—dump Donald Rumsfeld, appoint Petraeus, order the "surge." Politicians, analysts and even generals can talk all they want about civil war, about redeployment, about phased withdrawal. None of that is remotely on the president's agenda.
Will anything Petraeus says in his September report change Bush's determination to fight on in Iraq toward ill-defined "victory"—to "win" what has become a multifaceted mess of sectarian warfare that everyone is destined to lose? Almost certainly not. If there is a single encouraging paragraph in the entire document, Bush will seize on it as vindication.
Facts on the ground have never been the determining factor in Bush's policy on Iraq. Facts don't even seem to be a particularly important factor. It was considerate of Tony Snow to start preparing us for the inevitable—and, indirectly, to remind congressional leaders that if they want to change the president's course on Iraq, they won't do it through reasoned persuasion. George Bush can't bring himself to question his basic vision of Iraq, and I doubt he ever will.
Eugene Robinson's e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at symbol)washpost.com.
© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group
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9 Comments so far
Show AllDuuuuh! Did anyone expect anything different? Especially when the Democrats signaled early and often that they would not oppose this escalation.
Sorry, but this is like watching Charlie Brown trying to kick the football that Lucy is holding. At this point in time, why would anyone treat anything that comes out of this administration as anything but a complete and total lie. They've been caught in so many lies, the burden of proof should be on them. Anything without conclusive proof should be treated as complete BS.
Too bad the Democrats fall for this everytime. Or at least seem to fall for it. I'm at the point where I think this is all an act to cover for the fact that they really support what Bush is doing. Otherwise, you have to believe they are just as clueless as Charlie Brown trying to kick that dang football.
The "See You in September" proposal was always a time-wasting ruse. Four years of war were enough to see that there would be no victory and only more bloodshed. This is why the Dem's collapse on the supplementary war budget bill is so disgusting - no one in their right mind needed four more months to see nothing would change for the better. "Give the surge a chance" the Administration ordered, and the Dems fell for it. Sending another 25,000 troops into the stalemated meatgrinder that is Iraq is a replay of Gallipoli. Of course, our brilliant administration strategists never bother their beautiful minds with a study of military history. Cheney's gang is writing Petraeus's report at this moment, so we can all see come September how our brilliant commander guy's plan was such a success.
When 10% of an army is destroyed it is decimated. As of the Pentagons most recent report 20% of returning GIs have serious to sever mental health imparements and another 20% a lesser level of imaprement. The longer we allow the government to continue unfettered the less army we will have for any real defense needs. If Americans truely cared about the troops they would mass in Washington by the millions and shut down the government until they agreed to bring the troops home.
RE: CHENEY SHADOW GOVERNMENT "LIES" ABOUT IRAQ - AT LEAST THEY WARNED US ABOUT SADAAM'S UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES
COMarc June 15th, 2007 1:20 pm
"this administration...ha[s] been caught in so many lies, the burden of proof should be on them."
Now, hold on. What about those unmanned aerial vehicles loaded with biological toxins that Sadaam was preparing to launch deep inland on U.S. territory? Remember?
"It's hard now even to recall the foolishness that a majority of the American public and most of our representatives in Congress accepted as reality. To take but one outrageous example, the administration not only claimed that the Iraqis were developing a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), capable of delivering biowarfare agents deep inland from our coasts, but that they were a threat to do exactly that. The President said this on national television -- such planes could, he claimed, potentially penetrate hundreds of miles inland with their deadly cargoes -- but not before his administration offered this "intelligence" in briefings to Congress as it was trying to stampede our representatives into a war resolution."
Published on Monday, July 12, 2004 by TomDispatch.com
The CIA Did It!
by Tom Engelhardt
Not only is the "surge" not working, it's revealing itself as a last desperate attempt to shore up an army that has already lost. The number of airstrikes in a country that we're supposedly trying to stabilize has doubled. The bridges being blown up across the Tigris by the insurgents are isolating all of the American bases and enclaves on a daily basis. The noose is tightening on the occupation and anyone with half a brain in their head knows it. Of course, that's why Bush doesn't.
I don't believe the Dems "fell for it again" - they were IN ON IT. That's their schtick, folks. Has been for a very long time.
They'd rather their constituents think they are total pinheads who truly meant to do the right thing (but DARN IT, those clever, diabolical old Republicans foiled their noble attempts AGAIN!), rather than tacitly to utterly complicit in war crimes and corruption on a scale most Americans can't conceive of.
WMDs, Al Queda, Sadam Bad, Democracy on the March, Surge, Korea model, latest threat from Iran.....the BS will just keep coming. What will not come is an acknowledgment that this is a huge F..k Up and we are going to pack up and come home. Let me be wrong.
jon
Connecting the dots: from human behaviors to ecosystem decline
http://StudentsForTheEarth.org
In September, we will hear that more time is needed to make a proper assessment, followed by the appointment of a commission to investigate whether a commission to investigate should be appointed, followed by more support the troops while we conjure more lies, and then for Christmas - ooops, we dropped a bomb on Tehran...
Without trying to sound like "the person with no shoes "everyday, I mean it, everyday day I thank God that I am a Canadian living in Canada . If American military and the acquiescent American public ever , ever try the same tricks in Canada they tried in Cuba,El Salvador,Chile... you'll see a CO Quaker morph into SuperRambo quicker than the wink of RayGun's eye.
I am benignly socialist and will stay that way ( read 0-tolerance )