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US opts for final 'surge' to win battle of Baghdad
By Trevor Royle, Diplomatic Editor
The Sunday Herald (London)
THE MUTED message from Crawford, Texas said everything that needed to be
said about the execution of Saddam Hussein. Gone was the triumphalism of
"mission accomplished" that President George W Bush had trumpeted four
years ago from an aircraft carrier off the coast of California, when it
seemed that the problem of Iraq and its unruly leader had been fixed.
Instead, the only comment from the presidential ranch was that the news
from Baghdad was "an important milestone" following "a difficult year for
the Iraqi people and our troops". From mission accomplished to important
milestone, the US policy has come a long way and, as events have proved,
all of it has been downhill.
Bush had been asleep when the Iraqi leader was put to death and he woke
the following day to find that nothing had changed and that perhaps
nothing was changeable. This week, he will try once more to prove that
there is a way ahead when he announces drastic changes to the US policy in
Iraq, which will include the deployment of up to 30,000 troops
(optimistically described by the Pentagon as a "surge"), changes in the
command structure and the injection of additional funds for
reconstruction. It will not be a short-term fix either, as everything
points to any new plan being effective over at least 18 months, which will
take Bush towards the end of his presidency.
Sources close to the White House describe the policies as a "big bang" for
Iraq that will finally end the insurgency war by force of arms and by
strengthening the administration run by prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, but
already the new strategy is looking as flawed as anything that preceded
it.
The proposed changes come at a tense time for the US position in Iraq.
Saddam's hideous execution has heightened tensions between the Sunni and
Shia communities and until there is a strong and respected central
administration, civil strife is almost certain to escalate. So far, the
bloodshed has been nothing out of the ordinary and has merely been a
continuation of earlier violence, but the signs from within Iraq are not
encouraging. While the rest of the world and the people of Iraq attempted
to make sense of an execution that actually elevated the standing of a
ruthless dictator, al-Maliki appeared to abnegate responsibility for what
was happening by telling the influential Wall Street Journal that not only
did he not want the prime minister's job in the first place, but he would
certainly not be looking for a second term in office.
This was hardly a ringing endorsement for the emergence of a democratic
and stable administration in Iraq, but that was not the only shock Bush
had to face. Back home in Washington, there was an even starker reminder
of the difficulties facing the White House when Nancy Pelosi, the new
Speaker of the House of Representatives, was sworn in. She immediately
reminded her audience that the American people had "rejected an open-ended
obligation to a war without end" and insisted that "it is the
responsibility of the president to articulate a new plan for Iraq that
makes it clear to the Iraqis that they must defend their own streets and
their own security, a plan that promotes stability in the region and a
plan that allows us responsibly to re-deploy our troops".
Pelosi's insistence on a new deal reflects a growing belief among the
Democrats that the US should rethink its position in Iraq and that it
should make a start by scaling down its forces in the country. That was
part of the party's election message before the mid-term house elections
and already the Democrat-controlled Congress has announced it will
institute a "100 hours" assault course to push through a programme of
reform before the president's State of the Union address on January 23,
and that the question of US policy in Iraq will be part of the process.
"We are talking about the lives of American soldiers, whether we will send
20,000 or 30,000 more American soldiers into that field of combat, whether
that can possibly make a difference," claims ***** Durbin, Democrat senator
for Illinois. "I hope to God that the president reconsiders that. I am
afraid that in many instances we are only sending targets, not troops."
On Friday, the Democrats cranked up the pressure with a letter to Bush,
signed by Pelosi and the Senate majority leader Harry Reid, in which they
claimed that sending more troops to Iraq would only delay the day when the
Iraqis were able to take control of their own affairs. For that reason,
they announced they would not support any move to increase the size of the
US garrison.
Pelosi and Reid wrote in their letter: "Adding more combat troops will
only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking
point for no strategic gain. And it would undermine our efforts to get the
Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. We are well past the
point of more troops for Iraq."
It sounds good and there is no denying the strength of feeling within the
party about the blunders that have been made in Iraq, but imposing radical
changes will be more or less impossible. Bush might be a lame-duck
president whose best years are behind him, but he remains the
commander-in-chief and Congress would never attempt to counter-mand any
strategic decision made by him on the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Only two options are available to the Democrats and both are improbable.
The first would involve the impeachment of the president for taking the
country into an illegal conflict and waging the war on the false premise
that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction; the second would
require the Democrats to deny additional funds for the president's
military plans.
Pelosi has already admitted impeachment is off the agenda and she knows
only too well that no US politician could hope to survive if they starved
the military of funds. The best they can hope for is to influence the
president to scale down his plans. One other problem intrudes: although
the Democrats want to check Bush's policy in Iraq and have voiced their
disapproval of what has happened since 2003, like everyone else they have
failed to come up with a viable alternative. That absence leaves the field
open to the president and early this week he will unveil ambitious new
plans to turn things around and finally claim victory in what his advisers
have dubbed "the battle of Baghdad".
There will be three main pillars to the new proposals. The first will see
the deployment of up to 20,000 extra troops, and the Army and the Marine
Corps has been given strict orders to find the necessary numbers. If
senior commanders fail, they have been told that heads will roll and there
must be no talk of shortfalls or depleted numbers. If necessary, tours of
duty will be extended from 12 to 15 months and garrisons elsewhere will
have to be reduced. There will also be more money for reconstruction and
aid projects and attempts will be made to shore up al-Maliki's rickety
administration by giving it a new backbone in the shape of additional US
consultants and advisers. And, as happens in any shake-up of this kind,
there will be some serious blood-letting amongst the personnel whose
reputations have been discredited by their handling of US policy to date.
General John Abizaid will be replaced as head of central command for Iraq
and Afghanistan by admiral William Fallon. Abizaid has consistently warned
that while it is possible to deploy additional troops in Iraq they will
only produce "a temporary effect", and for his pains he has been written
off as a Vietnam has-been who is more worried about casualties than
military effectiveness. Criticised for the same reason, general George
Casey, the US commander in Iraq who has been responsible for attempting to
make the Iraqis more responsible for their own security, will make way for
the more bullish lieutenant-general David Petraeus, a veteran soldier and
former commander of the 101st "Screaming Eagles" Division.
Also shipping out of Baghdad in the near future will be the outspoken US
ambassador Zalmay Khalizad, a likeable diplomat of Afghan descent, who is
being recalled to the US to replace the controversial John Bolton at the
UN. Khalizad will in turn be replaced by Ryan Crocker, currently the US
ambassador to Pakistan. At the same time, intelligence guru John
Negroponte will beef up the State Department by becoming Condoleezza
Rice's deputy. All these changes get rid of the people associated with the
failure of US policy in Iraq and open the door for a more aggressive and
intensive approach to a solution.
Much of the president's thinking on this subject has been formed by the
military historian Frederick Kagan, author of Choosing Victory In Iraq,
who also acts as a consultant at the right-wing American Enterprise
Institute. Together with retired general Jack Keane, a former vice-chief
of staff, he has produced a blueprint which Bush seems to have accepted
and which calls for an end to the discredited "light footprint" advocated
by former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was sacked at the end of
last year. In its place there will be something heavier and more
substantial - a "surge" of additional forces and resources to tackle the
problem once and for all. Instead of drawing down troop numbers, as
advocated by the Democrats and supported by large numbers of Americans,
Bush will do the exact opposite and announce the deployment of additional
numbers of troops.
Some of them will be used to strengthen the borders with Iran to prevent
the cross-border infiltration by Shia militias, but the bulk of the
reinforcements will be used to tackle the insurgency war in Baghdad. How
this will be done is open to question.
Planners in the Pentagon are being unusually coy about the precise tasks
that will be allotted to the new formations and comment has been
restricted to the vague promise by general Peter Schoomaker, chief of
staff, that "we would not surge without a purpose and that purpose should
be measurable".
That means that no hints have been given about the approach to be taken
with the Mehdi Army owing its allegiance to the radical Shia cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been vociferous in his condemnation of the US
occupation. His followers have spawned most of the sectarian violence in
Iraq and during Saddam's execution there was a chilling reminder of his
strength and influence when his name was chanted again as the noose was
placed around the Iraqi dictator's neck. Up until now the accepted wisdom
has been to live with al-Sadr, but the time may have arrived when the
Mehdi Army has to be confronted or disarmed, even if the process produces
unacceptable casualties.
As Pentagon staffers always concede, that harsh reality is the price to be
paid for any reinforcement - "more troops," they say, "mean more body
bags". However, in any counter-insurgency, troops on the ground are always
at a premium and for some time now US commanders in Iraq have been crying
out for greater numbers to be put at their disposal. Last year they saw a
similar plan, Operation Forward Together, fail ignominiously because the
8000 additional troops made available to them were too few to make any
difference.
Kagan, in particular, has been scathing about this timid approach and has
warned consistently that the "Iraq-lite" philosophy adopted by Rumsfeld
has been useless right from the start.
"When the president makes his announcement he will be putting the cap on a
debate that has been vexing the best minds at the state department and the
Pentagon," says a senior US diplomatic source. "On the one hand the joint
chiefs of staff and general Casey in Iraq have spent the past two years
leaning towards troop reductions and the Iraqification of security forces.
On the other, there has been a resurgence of more hawkish thinking which
believes that the battle can be won and that it would be a policy of
despair to cut and run."
If the leaks are right, and the US plumps for "surging troops" and
"surging resources", this will be the antithesis of what James Baker's
Iraq Study Group recommended at the end of last year. At the time, the
former secretary of state made it clear that his findings represented
joined-up thinking and should not be cherry-picked by the president.
Although Bush has great respect for Baker and acknowledges the depth of
his experience in the Middle East, he has clearly paid lip-service to the
findings of the group and has listened instead to advisers like Kagan and
Keane. With their siren voices ringing in his ears, Bush has come to
believe that 2007 will be a crucial year in Iraq and one on which history
will finally assess his presidency.
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/specialreports/display.var.1107554.0.us_opts_for_final_surge_to_win_battle_of_baghdad.php
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