Iraq Troop Surge Needs Additional Troops

What is this? Already?

President Bush ordered 21,500 additional combat troops to be sent to Iraq. As usual, with this White House’s habit of making less than full disclosures that number was not quite accurate as to the number of troops that will need to be deployed.

The Pentagon has already requested an additional 7,500 troops to serve in supporting roles for the 21,500 already being deployed to Iraq. So 28,000 seems to be the more correct number, at least for now.

The Pentagon, never too accurate with cost estimates, has put forward an initial estimate of $5.6 billion as the cost of the surge. Top members of the Senate Budget Committee scoffed at the Pentagon estimates that the escalation would cost $5.6 billion.
They seem to think that $20 billion will be a closer cost.

One tremendous challenge to the whole concept of the surge being successful is that we are confronting a “thinking” enemy. This has been pointed out on numerous occasions by our American commanders in Iraq.

As we deploy troops to hopefully bring some degree of order to Baghdad our thinking enemies simply take a bit of a vacation and wait us out. After all, most of the insurgents have lived in Iraq all of their lives. It won’t cost them anywhere near $20 billion to stay with their families for a few months.

Other more hostile dangerous lethal insurgents may think that it would be fun and adventuresome to have a change of scenery and move to Basra, or Diwaniyah, Kirkuk, or Mosul, or anyplace else that offers interesting largely unprotected targets.

The insurgents really don’t have to think too hard to decide to play it cool and not meet the surge troops head on, do they?

A look at the history of fighting insurgences does not instill confidence in our hopes that even 28,000 additional troops will be enough to make any real difference in bringing stability to Iraq, much less a well functioning democratic government. The real question is how many troops will it take to secure all of the major cities in Iraq?

I was in Vietnam pretty much at the peak of the American troop buildup for that unfortunate war. That was in 1967 and 1968 when we had about 600,000 troops in country. In 1975 what was left of our forces after a long draw down of troop levels due to “Vietnamization policies” were fleeing Saigon in one of the most disorganized, panicky, humiliating American reverse deployments in history.

I still get tears in my eyes when I recall mental images of jammed full almost too heavy to fly helicopters taking off from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon as NVA tanks rolled into the city. For Vietnam War veterans the live TV coverage was almost too much to take. We had followed orders, fought, been wounded, been called baby killers upon our return, spat upon, and in over 58,000 cases died for this?

Fortunately, the insurgents in Iraq don’t have tanks. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to need them. They have an apparently endless supply of Islamic extremists who are more than willing to blow themselves up as well as whomever is unfortunate enough to be within 50 meters or so of them.

Having hoards of suicide bombers is a far cheaper and more effective means of achieving their ends than by using tanks which the American forces would easily destroy by air.

It would be wise for the leadership in the White House and the Pentagon to get a grip on the monster that they have created in Iraq. The beast will not be satisfied until coalition forces (almost all Americans now, after four long years our allies are rethinking their involvement and reducing troop levels in Iraq) are either withdrawn in somewhat of an orderly fashion, or clinging to overflowing helicopters trying to get out before they are shot down.

I fear at this stage of the war that 21,500, or 28,000, or if we could find them 100,000 additional troops would not make any difference. Except for the tragic loss of additional American servicemen’s and women’s lives that prolonging the agony in Iraq will surely produce.

The savage and homegrown nature of insurgences is almost impossible for conventional forces to overcome. Aren’t there any patriotic military historians in the Pentagon or White House that can research that fact and give an honest career ending report to Congress and to the American public?

But I suppose that would be a waste of time. The decider makes the final decision and once he decides he stubbornly stays the course.

Let’s hope that we have an abundance of helicopters ready when the time comes.

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