The news just keeps getting better and better. By all accounts, the much maligned surge is working. Car bombings, civilian deaths, coalition soldiers killed and wounded are all down. The killing and capturing of al-Qaeda fighters are up, in no small part due to Iraqi citizens who seem to have finally figured out who the real enemy is. "Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighborhood," reported the Times Online last July 23rd. By comparison, we don’t look all that bad. The intelligence gathered from defectors has led to the capture or killing of top al-Qaeda personnel in Iraq including Abu Kaldoun, one of three senior al-Qaeda leaders in Doura, a former al-Qaeda stronghold.
Things are going so well that Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, no friends of President Bush or his Iraq policy, recently opined that this was "a war we just might win," as their op-ed piece was titled. "We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw…Today, morale [among American troops] is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Patraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they now feel they have the numbers needed to make a real difference." In the days when Americans knew how to fight a war, such news would prompt military and political leaders, and the general population, to call for even more troops so that victory could be secured quickly and, therefore, at the lowest cost. Oh for the good old days.
Incredibly, the Associated Press reported today "Commanders in Iraq have decided to begin the drawdown of U.S. forces in volatile Diyala province…Instead of replacing the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division…soldiers from another brigade in Salahuddin province next door will expand into Diyala, thereby broadening its area of responsibility." Do not adjust your screen; we really are making that blunder. Now that we are winning, but before we have won, American forces are to be thinned out. I know that President Bush has used up most if not all of his political capital, and I’m mindful of the many in Congress and millions in the nation who want to bring the troops home, but good night, there are right and wrong ways to pursue victory, and troop reductions belong in the snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory column.
One of the clear lessons of Vietnam was the folly of gradually escalating troop strength. General Colin Powell, a Vietnam veteran and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf war, refused to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam when it became necessary to oust Saddam from Kuwait. He insisted on the application of overwhelming force, and America put over 500,000 troops into Desert Storm. After a couple dozen days of air bombardment, largely to destroy Iraq’s command and control capabilities, the ground war was over in 100 hours. Our losses were so light that one wag conjectured it was safer to be in Kuwait during the battle than in any of several American cities. Tragically and no doubt due to the war fatigue in America, such an effort today seems beyond our will.
Too bad, for premature troop reductions will make victory more difficult and costly, or perhaps impossible to achieve. Come back, Colin, come back.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in War in Iraq