Wednesday, November 29, 2006

McCain's Fantasy Solution

No one must have seen fit to share with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee the intelligence that Anbar Provence (the main Sunni stronghold) is a lost cause. If they have, he is now proved to be even more full of shit than previously suspected.

In a surprise move, the (Iraq Study Group) heard last-minute testimony from ... Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz.) a strong advocate of sending more troops to Iraq. ... (T)he 10-member panel asked McCain to talk to them in a hastily organized teleconference, according to sources in McCain's office. The panel, which has held months of informal, secret hearings, was supposed to have finished its interviews last week.

Neither of the two options put forward by experts advising the panel called for deployment of additional troops, although the idea of sending as many as 50,000 more was advocated in testimony by other Middle East experts.

McCain's aides would not disclose the substance of the senator's comments but referred to recent media appearances. On NBC's "Meet the Press" this month, McCain warned that even providing a date for withdrawal would lead to chaos in the region.

"There are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require the presence of additional troops," he said.

To stabilize Iraq, McCain advocated first getting Sunni areas under control, to show Shiites that they do not need militias to protect themselves from Sunni attacks. The present formula is "unacceptable," he said. He also predicted that the U.S.-led coalition is "either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months."

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