I just got my daily email of news stories from WaPo. Under highlights, there was the title, "Among Top Officials, 'Surge' Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting". So I clicked on it, and noticed something odd. A story from SEPT. 9 was flagged as a highlight in today's email dated SEPT 13. I wonder why ...
You've probably already heard most of the stuff in this article from various sources on DU, but this story illustrates the mess from an interesting angle. Worth reading!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801846.htmlAmong Top Officials, 'Surge' Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting
By Peter Baker, Karen DeYoung, Thomas E. Ricks, Ann Scott Tyson, Joby Warrick and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers and Researcher Julie Tate
Sunday, September 9, 2007; Page A01
For two hours, President Bush listened to contrasting visions of the U.S. future in Iraq. Gen. David H. Petraeus dominated the conversation by video link from Baghdad, making the case to keep as many troops as long as possible to cement any security progress. Adm. William J. Fallon, his superior, argued instead for accepting more risks in Iraq, officials said, in order to have enough forces available to confront other potential threats in the region.
The polite discussion in the White House Situation Room a week ago masked a sharper clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq, one that has been building since Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Middle East operations, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather information. Soon afterward, officials said, Fallon began developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops.
One of those plans, according to a Centcom officer, involved slashing U.S. combat forces in Iraq by three-quarters by 2010. In an interview, Fallon disputed that description but declined to offer details. Nonetheless, his efforts offended Petraeus's team, which saw them as unwelcome intrusion on their own long-term planning. The profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men.
"Bad relations?" said a senior civilian official with a laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it." ....
I N S A N E ! ! !
These numbers they're tossing around are PEOPLE!
We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. No matter what happens, more Iraqis will get killed.
There is no good solution. We need to pick the least bad strategy which is get all our soldiers out ASAP. No more surge. Enough! Let the Iraqis solve their problems. Yes, we came in and made a mess. But we CANNOT clean it up, they DON'T WANT US THERE!!!
If we stay, the only thing different is that more of our soldiers will die.
Iraqis are smart people, fully capable of self-organizing to solve their problems. It will be damned hard, and the country will probably end up as distinct ethnic regions the way things turned out in the former Yugoslavia. But Iraqis have proven themselves in the Anbar province where local groups took action to stop the killings. But now, this idiot administration is trying to take credit for it.
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: