Ironduke

Bush Reported Preparing Personnel Shake-Up

January 5, 2007 -- U.S. President George W. Bush is reported planning a series of changes of key U.S. military and political leaders as part of a new strategy for Iraq.

The White House and Defense Department have not confirmed the changes, but U.S. media and administration officials have said they will include appointing Admiral William Fallon, currently head of the U.S. Pacific Command, to replace General John Abizaid as chief of the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The reports say Lieutenant General David Petraeus is expected to take over from General George Casey as the leading ground commander in Iraq.

On the diplomatic side, the reports say current U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and former Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad will be nominated to be the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Ryan Crocker, the current U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, is expected to replace Khalilzad in Baghdad, according to the reports.

And Bush is expected later today to announce that John Negroponte, a former ambassador to Iraq, is leaving as director of national intelligence to become deputy secretary of state.

Officials say retired Vice Admiral and intelligence official Michael McConnell will replace Negroponte as intelligence chief.

Bush has said he expects to deliver a speech next week unveiling a fresh Iraq strategy. Officials have said Bush is considering whether to deploy thousands more U.S. troops to Iraq in a bid to bring security.

(compiled from agency reports)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...05-rferl01.htm

__________________
The Buck Stops Here

Shek

Shake up is the wrong word. Both Casey and Abazaid have expressed a desire to move on, having served their country for the better part of their lives. This is a planned transition, and not some sacking as the words "shake up" could imply.

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Ironduke

Thank you for your commentary Shek. The title could indeed be misleading. I'm interested in knowing who Bush is or may be planning to replace the persons you named, and their qualities and qualifications.

Shipwreck

Democratic Leaders Oppose More U.S. Troops in Iraq

By Laura Litvan

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said they won't support any proposal by President George W. Bush to increase U.S. forces in Iraq, an option he is considering as he works on a new plan to quell sectarian violence there.

"Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain,'' the top two congressional Democratic leaders wrote in a letter to Bush. "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.''

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Democrats are considering options to limit the U.S. involvement, including setting a cap on U.S. troop levels and requiring Bush to obtain congressional approval to exceed it.

The letter from Pelosi and Reid comes as Bush prepares to lay out a plan next week for new U.S. steps in Iraq and signals Democrats' efforts to thwart any troop increase or exact a political price if Bush orders one.

"There will be the eyes of the American people on everything the president does in Iraq, for a change,'' Reid told reporters today. "The people of this country no longer support this war in Iraq.''

Among the options Bush is considering is boosting the number of U.S. forces in Iraq, now at about 140,000. Proposals for an increase range from 8,000 more troops to as many as 30,000. The president hasn't indicated which direction he favors.

"I will want to make sure that the mission is clear and specific and can be accomplished,'' Bush said this week.

Bush Meets With Senators

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush agrees with Pelosi that the U.S. must remain aggressive on the diplomatic front and that Iraq needs a sustainable political settlement and must address sectarian problems.

"The president, for the most part, is listening to people, is listening to ideas,'' he said. "There will be opportunities for Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid to speak with the president on this.''

Bush discussed the war at the White House today with about a dozen senators from both parties, including Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois and Republicans Trent Lott of Mississippi, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Larry Craig of Idaho.

Obama said he wouldn't support a troop increase. "I said definitively that I thought it was a bad idea,'' he told reporters after the meeting.

'Somber' Meeting

Craig said the mood at the meeting was somber. "This was not a meeting with lots of smiles,'' he said.

Pelosi, a critic of the war since its inception in March 2003, was elected Speaker of the House yesterday as Democrats took control of the House and Senate. Earlier today, she said that adding more troops would be an escalation of the war that rejects a call from voters in November for a change in direction.

"I don't support it,'' Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in an interview. "It's an escalation of the war, and the American people spoke very clearly in the election that if there is any place that they want a new direction, it was in Iraq.''

Reid, installed yesterday in the Senate's most powerful post, said Dec. 17 on ABC's "This Week'' program that he would support a surge of American forces for two or three months as part of a larger plan to withdraw combat troops by 2008.

The letter he and Pelosi sent Bush today said: "Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror.

Changed His Mind

Reid's action was surprising "because a week ago Senator Reid was quoted as saying he would support a surge if there was some plan for withdrawal,'' said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, in an interview on "Political Capital with Al Hunt'' to air this weekend on Bloomberg Television. "This is sort of a 180 in a very short period of time.''

Reid told reporters he changed his mind after learning that U.S. commanders on the ground didn't think a surge would work.

"Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed,'' Pelosi and Reid wrote Bush.

"After nearly four years of combat, tens of thousands of U.S. casualties, and over $300 billion dollars, it is time to bring the war to a close,'' they said.

"There is no purely military solution in Iraq. There is only a political solution,'' they wrote.

Hearings Scheduled

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today released a tentative schedule for four weeks of Iraq hearings beginning with a closed intelligence briefing Jan. 9. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to testify Jan. 11 ahead of a trip to the Middle East.

The committee will "to seek an answer to the question currently dominating the national debate: what options remain to secure America's interests in Iraq? Where do we go from here?'' said Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the committee.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace will testify before the House Armed Services Committee Jan. 11 and the following day before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the committees said.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said today he wants to learn more about the president's plans, though he is reluctant to second-guess Bush.

"I think that the president is the commander in chief, and while Congress does, in fact, have a role, I don't think that we should be dictating military strategy in Iraq from Capitol Hill,'' Boehner said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 5, 2007 16:57 EST

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...WGk&refer=home

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"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9)

Shek

LTG Petraeus has been reported as being the replacing to GEN Casey. LTG Petraeus commanded the 101 ABN DIV during OIF I and then commanded MSTC-I (training the ISF) during OIF II/III time frame. I'll dig up some material on him later, but he's the right man for the job and the best choice. ADM McConnell I believe will replace Abizaid - I don't know anything about him.

Shek

Here are some things on LTG Petraeus:

http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/C.../Petraeus1.pdf

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=1261844

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/leadershi.../petraeus.html

Shek

Shipwreck,
Thanks for the article. I see that the Democrats continue to want to burnish their credentials as being the party that is weak on national defense. They're still fighting the decision to go war instead of the war we are fighting. GWOT or not in March 2003, it is part and parcel with it in January 2007.

Shipwreck

The Democrats bite the bait; once again...

Shipwreck

Shek,

McConnell will replace Negroponte, just like it says in the first post. The admiral is a consensual choice (the guy served under both Bush 1 and Clinton as director of the NSA) and while he will most probably manage to navigate the politics of agencies more smoothly than his predecessor, he's definitely not the guy we needed to head our intel.

He'll hopefully be nothing more than a transitional director till the next presidential term.

My 2 cents.

PS : I totally agree with you on Petraus.

troung

Skepticism from the Military on an Iraq Surge

Without a broader new political and economic strategy, many officers at the Pentagon worry that Bush's idea of sending 30,000 additional troops to Baghdad won't change anything

By Sally B Donnelly/Washington
Posted Thursday, Jan. 04, 2007

When President Bush dumped Donald Rumsfeld after the midterm elections in November, many officers in the Pentagon were elated to be rid of the domineering Secretary of Defense. They looked forward to a day when their views on such crucial issues as the Iraq War might carry more weight with the White House. But as the Administration prepares to announce its latest new Iraq strategy, those same officers may no longer be so optimistic. Bush is widely expected to call for the so-called surge option: injecting some 30,000 new soldiers and Marines into Iraq. But many officers at the Pentagon, including some of the most senior, aren't sure such an increase in the force is a good idea.

The head of the Marine Corps has openly questioned the wisdom of the move without an overarching strategy. "We would fully support, I think, as the Joint Chiefs, the idea of putting more troops into Iraq if there is a solid military reason for doing that, if there is something to be gained," Gen. James Conway, who became Commandant of the Marine Corps six weeks ago, said to reporters recently. "We do not believe that just adding numbers for the sake of adding numbers — just thickening the mix — is necessarily the way to go."

Now other members of the military's top brass are quietly questioning the lack of a clear-cut strategy. "What is the objective? Does the President want Iraq to look like Iowa?" asks one retired senior officer. "What has finally put some backbone in the Joint Chiefs is that, to date, there has not been a realistic endstate identified that matches the reality on the ground. They still don't get it. Tactics without a strategy are a recipe for disaster."

A recent report overseen by former Army Major General John Batiste, who headed the 1st Infantry Division and has been a vocal critic of the Administration's handling of the war, says the choice Bush faces in Iraq is stark: "We have reached the point where we need to ask the question whether it is more important to preserve the country of Iraq with its façade of democratic government, or protect our own national security interests."

Virtually every expert who has followed Iraq for the last four years says a military surge without accompanying political and economic progress would be a waste. They believe some essential steps need to be taken first: the U.S. should openly declare it has no long-term intention of staying in Iraq, the Iraqi government should soon announce provincial elections, and the U.S. should back a large-scale jobs program. They also advocate putting more pressure on the Iraqi government for a political reconciliation schedule, as well as a serious discussion of sharing oil revenues among the different ethnic regions.

But for a surge of new troops to make a real difference, change has to come in Washington, not just in Baghdad, argues retired Gen. Tony Zinni. Like many other active duty and retired officers, Zinni has been disappointed in the failure of other government agencies like State, Justice and Energy to devote resources to the reconstruction effort. "Washington needs almost as much work as Iraq does," Zinni says. "First and foremost, it needs to establish a viable interagency structure. Doing more of the same — either in Iraq or Washington — won't work. There have never been enough troops, but if there is a new strategy which includes political reconciliation and economic development, then more U.S. troops could gain some momentum so those programs could take hold." Zinni estimates it will take five to seven more years to achieve "a reasonably stable" Iraq.

And like the Iraq Study Group, which called for reaching out to Iran and Syria, Zinni and other officers believe that diplomacy is key to any turnaround in Iraq. "I think we have lost ground in the region. Potential allies have been burned. But we need to work at getting them and the rest of the international community back. The Administration has to work every angle. You've got to light 1,000 fires out there and hope something takes."

Regardless of what Bush decides, he will have two new men to implement his plan. Pentagon sources say that Bush will nominate Navy Adm. William J. Fallon to replace Army Gen. John Abizaid as head of the U.S. military's Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fallon, 61, a Vietnam veteran and Navy pilot, has been head of Pacific Command since 2005. His choice comes as a surprise, because the Central Command has always been headed by either an Army or Marine general, and because Fallon has no direct experience in Iraq or Afghanistan.

However, Bush has also picked an Iraq veteran, Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who served there in the early stages of the war, to replace Army General George Casey as the ground commander in Iraq.

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To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

troung

What a Surge Really Means

Can a couple more divisions in Iraq make a difference? Or is Bush's idea too little, too late?

Posted Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007

For years now, George W. Bush has told Americans that he would increase the number of troops in Iraq only if the commanders on the ground asked him to do so. It was not a throwaway line: Bush said it from the very first days of the war, when he and Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld were criticized for going to war with too few troops. He said it right up until last summer, stressing at a news conference in Chicago that Iraq commander General George Casey "will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there."

Seasoned military people suspected that the line was a dodge--that the civilians who ran the Pentagon were testing their personal theory that war can be fought on the cheap and the brass simply knew better than to ask for more. In any case, the President repeated the mantra to dismiss any suggestion that the war was going badly. Who, after all, knew better than the generals on the ground?

Now, as the war nears the end of its fourth year and the number of Americans killed has surpassed 3,000, Bush has dropped the generals-know-best line. Sometime next week the President is expected to propose a surge in the number of U.S. forces in Iraq for a period of up to two years. A senior official said reinforcements numbering "about 20,000 troops," and maybe more, could be in place within months. The surge would be achieved by extending the stay of some forces already in Iraq and accelerating the deployment of others.

The irony is that while the generals would have liked more troops in the past, they are cool to the idea of sending more now. That's in part because the politicians and commanders have had trouble agreeing on what the goal of a surge would be. But it is also because they are worried that a surge would further erode the readiness of the U.S.'s already stressed ground forces. And even those who back a surge are under no illusions about what it would mean to the casualty rate. "If you put more American troops on the front line," said a White House official, "you're going to have more casualties."

Coming from Bush, a man known for bold strokes, the surge is a strange half-measure--too large for the political climate at home, too small to crush the insurgency in Iraq and surely three years too late. Bush has waved off a bipartisan rescue mission out of pride, stubbornness or ideology, or some combination of the three. Rather than reversing course, as all the wise elders of the Iraq Study Group advised, the Commander in Chief is betting that more troops will lead the way to what one White House official calls "victory."

WHOSE IDEA IS THIS?


ALL KINDS OF MILITARY EXPERTS, BOTH active duty and retired, have been calling for more troops since before the war began--former Army chief Eric Shinseki, former Centcom boss Anthony Zinni and, perhaps loudest of all, Senator John McCain. But seen in another light, the surge is the latest salvo in the 30-year tong war between the two big foreign policy factions in the Republican Party: the internationalists and the neoconservatives. The surge belongs to the neocons and in particular to Frederick Kagan, who taught military history at West Point for a decade and today works out of the American Enterprise Institute as a military analyst. Kagan argued for a surge last fall in the pages of the Weekly Standard, the neocons' house organ, after the military's previous surge, Operation Forward Together, failed in late October. Kagan turned to former Army Vice Chief of Staff Jack Keane, a retired four-star general who still has street cred at the Pentagon, to help flesh out the plan and then sell it to the White House. The neocons don't have the same juice they had at the start of the war, in part because so many of them have fled the government in shame. But they are a long way from dead.

It was no accident that the surge idea began gathering steam among the war's most ardent supporters at exactly the same moment the Baker-Hamilton group proposed, in early December, that the White House start executing a slow but steady withdrawal from Iraq. To the neocons, former Secretary of State James Baker is the archenemy, the epitome of those internationalists who have always been too willing to cut deals with shady players overseas. His commission's 79 recommendations struck the neocons as defeatist--and a condemnation of a war they had thought up in the first place. And so, re-energized by the return of Baker to prominence, they went on the offensive. "We were hearing all this talk of pulling back and pulling out and how not to lose," said a retired senior officer. "But we're looking for a way to win."

Although the Baker group allowed for a surge to stabilize Baghdad or speed up training of Iraqis, it conditioned that O.K. with the phrase "if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective." When it became clear to the internationalists that the Kagan-Keane surge was winning White House attention without any calls for more troops from generals on the ground, they counter-counterattacked. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former four-star, said a surge had been tried in Baghdad--and had failed last fall--and would only further delay Iraqis in taking control of their own security. Powell added, a little pointedly, that he had not heard any generals ask for more troops--an oblique way of hinting that the President was saying one thing about who was deciding troop levels but doing another.

Bush greeted the Baker-Hamilton proposals with the gratitude of someone who had just received a box of rotting cod. He never much liked the internationalists (although--or perhaps because--his father is a charter member). By Christmas, it was clear that he had not only rejected a staged withdrawal in the mold of Baker-Hamilton but was ready to up his bet and throw even more troops at the problem. He began executing his pivot quietly. First, after reassuring Americans that he would ask for more troops only when the generals requested them, Bush amended that promise and hinted that he would merely listen to what the generals were saying. Bush next sent his new Pentagon boss, Robert Gates, to Baghdad to see whether the Iraqi commanders needed more troops. Bush then turned to his National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, to hack this new way out of the Iraqi jungle.

So far, the Hadley-run hunt for a new military and diplomatic approach has earned mediocre marks from inside and outside the White House. Wider-ranging alternatives were not explored in any depth, said several foreign policy experts who met with Hadley in December, and talks with Iran and Syria were ruled out of the question. A dismayed Administration official who has generally been an optimist about Iraq described the process as chaotic. "None of this," he predicted of the surge and its coming rollout, "is going to work."

WHAT IS THE MISSION?

NOT LONG AGO, THE GOAL OF U.S. FORCES IN Iraq sounded straightforward: liberate the country and turn it over to the Iraqi people. Now U.S. strategy is a vast, many-headed monster: disarm or kill the insurgents, hunt down al-Qaeda, rebuild the electrical and energy grids, establish civilian order, work with political parties to speed a stand-alone government, keep an eye out for Iranian influence--and try not to get killed in the process. According to Kagan, the newly enlarged forces would reorder those priorities and make protecting the Iraqi people Job One.

How? With what retired Lieut. General David Barno, who helped Kagan and Keane write the plan, calls "classic counterinsurgency tactics: soldiers going house to house in every block, finding out who lives there, what they do, how many weapons they have, whom they are connected to and how they can help or hurt." Only by winning the trust of the people, the thinking goes, can the U.S. overcome the insurgents. There is a big debate about how many troops would be needed to execute that mission successfully. Some experts think 100,000 might be the right number; Keane and Kagan say it can be done with 35,000, which is about the limit that would be available. It does not appear that the White House will be sending that many.

HOW DO THE GENERALS VIEW THE IDEA OF A SURGE?

FOR MONTHS THE GENERALS OPPOSED increasing troop strength, chiefly because they calculated that as long as the American footprint was growing, Iraqis would never take responsibility for their own security. This continues to concern them: a former military official told TIME that Defense Secretary Gates has spent a lot of time in his first three weeks on the job trying to wrest from his military planners clear benchmarks for putting the Iraqis in charge. The chiefs hinted they would back a surge only if the goals--and the goalposts--are explicit. "We would not surge without a purpose," said Army chief Peter Schoomaker. "And that purpose should be measurable."

The chiefs also complain that the surge seems to involve only guys with guns. There is a widespread feeling that the Pentagon has shouldered the entire load in Iraq while U.S. government agencies better suited for reorganizing political and economic systems have dropped the ball. Other agencies, most notably the State, Justice and Energy departments, lag in sending experts and advisers to help the Iraqis pull themselves together. Uniformed officers say they can pull off a surge, but it won't make any difference if there isn't a larger, government-wide strategy to mend the broken country.

But if the brass isn't keen on a surge, they also know a bargaining chip when they see one. While Rumsfeld was in charge, the Joint Chiefs were ****led, too scared to say boo in public if it meant crossing the civilian boss. But in early December, once Rumsfeld had resigned, the Army and Marine Corps chiefs increasingly went public with their long-standing gripes that Iraq has stretched their forces to the breaking point, damaging recruiting and diminishing readiness. Bush moved quickly to quell this startling revolt: within days he hinted that he might ask Congress to enlarge the overall size of the armed forces in the future. It will be years before the expanded forces are recruited, trained, equipped and in the field, so that change won't solve the problems a surge creates. But the generals seem to have prevailed on a demand that went nowhere while Rumsfeld was in charge.

HOW LONG COULD A SURGE BE SUSTAINED?

TO CREATE "THE SURGE," KAGAN AND KEANE proposed extending combat tours in Iraq to produce an additional 30,000 troops in Iraq over the next 18 months. Army tours would be lengthened from 12 to 15 months, and Marine deployments would stretch from seven to 12 months. A few additional combat brigades would be shipped over early to round out the reinforcements. There is no question that some units could pick up the pace. The Marines, after all, still station almost 20,000 troops in Okinawa.

Outgoing Centcom boss John Abizaid told a Senate panel in November that the U.S. "can put in 20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect." But he added that "the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps." Surge proponents quietly cheered the recent announcement that Abizaid is retiring. They believe that Abizaid and many of the Army's other top generals are locked in a post-Vietnam mentality that has them worrying more about the recruitment and retention required for an all-volunteer force than about fighting and winning wars.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SURGE ENDS?

THAT DEPENDS ON WHETHER YOU ARE AN optimist or a pessimist on the subject of Iraq. Kagan told TIME that U.S. troop force "should be down significantly" from what it is now--"enough to permit economic development, the recruiting and training of the Iraqi army, political development and reconciliation." Under this scenario, U.S. forces can turn to eradicating the insurgents full time once Baghdad is "stabilized." Not everyone buys this happy talk. "Are we assuming the insurgents don't get to vote on this?" asks a veteran of both the Iraqi and Vietnam wars. "I see more arrogance than ever, assuming once again that Western genius counts for more than Eastern resolve." Already the sectarian militias so eager to kill civilians across Baghdad have been careful not to confront U.S. forces. When U.S. troops appear, the Mahdi Army simply melts away and waits for another moment. Unless they are killed off, jailed or somehow turned into allies--unlikely outcomes all--Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militia fighters will still be around because they have more patience than the U.S. has staying power.

SO, IS THE SURGE BUSH'S LAST STAND?

PROBABLY YES, WHETHER BUSH INTENDS IT that way or not. There is always a chance that a surge might reduce the violence, if only for a while. But given that nothing in Iraq has gone according to plan, it seems more likely that it won't. That's why many in the military assume privately that a muscular-sounding surge now is chiefly designed to give Bush the political cover to execute a partial withdrawal on his terms later. "We think that by bringing the level of violence down and bringing the level of Iraqi support up, we will be able to begin to hand over the country," Kagan told TIME.

Asked what happens if the surge fails, he added, "If the situation collapses for some other reason--loss of will in the U.S., say, or an unexpected Iraqi political meltdown, then the reduced violence will permit a more orderly withdrawal, if that becomes necessary, mitigating the effect of defeat on the U.S. military and potentially on the region." A retired colonel who served in Baghdad put it more bluntly: "We don't know whether this is a plan for victory or just to signal to Americans that we did our damnedest before pulling out."

There is one other scenario to consider: it may be that Bush won't pull out of Iraq as long as he is President. Whether it works or not, a surge of 18 to 24 months would carry Bush to the virtual end of his term. After that, Iraq becomes someone else's problem. Bush's real exit strategy in Iraq may just be to exit the presidency first.

WHEN HE UNVEILS HIS PLAN, BUSH IS likely to wrap the surge inside a handful of other proposals. There is a new Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative in the works for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's team and the outlines of an upgraded Iraqi jobs and infrastructure proposal on the table. Plus, Bush has indicated that he favors the expansion in the armed forces that both the Army and Marine Corps chiefs want. Most of those ideas will meet with broad support in Congress and at the Pentagon, and that's part of the design here: it will be harder to pick the surge apart, the thinking goes, if it's paired with other projects. Besides, Bush and lawmakers know there isn't much Congress can do to stop a surge, short of cutting off funds for military operations. And neither party has any appetite for that.

But that fact hides one other big political change since the November elections. Skepticism among Republicans about the President's thinking on Iraq has become reflexive. Over the past week, two Republican Senators, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, indicated they were far from sold on the surge, and Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran from Nebraska, called a surge "folly." A senior aide to a G.O.P. Senator told TIME that "requiring more troops without providing the goals or the message is a killer. It's a political killer."

And this is where the problem of the President's direction on Iraq only damages his cause in the long run. The White House imagines it is girding for battle against the Democrats and the naysayers who opposed the war in the first place. In fact, its fastest-growing problem is with Republicans who carried Bush's water on "stay the course" last fall. That gambit cost the party 36 seats in the House and Senate in November. One can only imagine what that number would have been--45? 55?--had Bush campaigned last fall for sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq instead.

With reporting by Mike Allen, SALLY B. DONNELLY, Massimo Calabresi/ Washington, Mark Kukis/Baghdad

Shek

Thanks. It's Admiral Fallon who's the current PACOM Commander that will replace Abizaid. For a dumb infantryman like me, an admiral is an admiral - they're all the same

Shek

You cannot build an economic rebirth if you don't have security. The security to allow an ecnomic rebirth to bloom and flower doesn't exist. Ergo, we need guys with guns. Now, let's hope that Congress follows suit by passing the economic package for Iraq that President Bush is going to ask for. If only we hadn't waited until now to add troops and get more money flowing

Shek

King David Returns - Ralph Peters OpEd

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01052007...ers.htm?page=1

Shek

A rejoinder now to Ralph Peter's main concern. I've never seen LTG Petraeus command; however, a general in the US Army doesn't advance to the GO ranks if he cannot fight - our promotion system is designed as such, and in fact, is so narrow as to exclude a lot of those like Petraues to the point that most senior officers can ONLY fight and are having a hard time wrapping their brains around counterinsurgency. So, from an institutional perspective, I'm sure he can fight.

I can say that it is certain that LTG Petraeus is not afraid to fight. Observing his battalion's live fire exercises so close, he was nearly fatally wounded one night when a stray bullet struck him. His surgeon - one Bill Frist - former Senate Majority Leader - who was not yet working in Congress at the time. What a way to meet an influential person! Then, as an assistant division commander, he had a partial parachute malfunction during a jump and shattered his hip. Did it slow him down? No, he fought back from that and now shatters many of his officers during punishing runs led by him. Many of my friends who commanded in the 101 ABN DIV spoke of this and "volunteered" only grudgingly to run with him recently when LTG Petraeus came up here recently.

So, while I can't personally attest to his "fighting" capabilities, I don't have any doubts from my perspective based on the above that he has the ability to turn this on if needed. More importantly, LTG Petraeus listens to Sun Tzu when he says, "to subjugate the enemy's army without doing battle is the highest of excellence."