Odierno Says "Surge" Needs Another Year
It is the Army's job to keep coming up with practicable-sounding military solutions to our insurmountable Iraq disaster. When one approach fails, you can always be certain that another plan will be rapidly offered up.
And now they want the "surge" to be given another year.
And now they want the "surge" to be given another year.
U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.
"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.
"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," he said in an interview in Baghdad last week. "Are we making progress? If we're not making any progress, we need to change our strategy. If we're making progress, then we need to make a decision on whether we continue to surge."
posted by Effwit at 7:57 AM
4 Comments:
Surge goes Splurge.
Oh well, the Surge was always destined to be but the proverbial foot wedged in the doorway.
Oh look, here comes the leg, an arm, and the illustrated Watchtower.
Again, once we hit Normandy we were in Europe to stay. We ain't leaving Iraq until China goes away.
M1:
Most likely true about the inevitability of an (even more) extended stay in Iraq.
But it is interesting to watch the tortured justifications as they become necessary.
..any ways, a ripe lingonberry of a post.
M1:
Thanks. BTW, in Tom Ricks' Fiasco, Odierno -- then commander of 4ID -- is credited for turning the masses of neutral Iraqis against the occupation with excessive violence against civilians and other culturally insensitive tactics.
Also, other Army commands were pissed at his boys for recklessly drawing down their weapons on American forces and conducting air operations way to near too other U.S. units.
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