Yet More US Troops for Iraq

The US troop escalation in Iraq continues.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has approved a request for an extra 2,200 military police to support the security drive. The request was made by the new US commander in Iraq, Lt Gen David Petraeus, in anticipation of additional forces being required to detain additional Iraqis expected to be arrested in the Baghdad security sweeps.

Breaking down doors to homes and arresting scads of “suspected insurgents” is an all too common “winning the hearts and minds of the people” tactic that for some reason unknown to our military doesn’t seem to win many hearts or minds. The problem in Iraq, of course, is that most of the insurgents look just like Iraqis, because, well, they are Iraqis. You can imagine the identity problems this inconvenient fact causes for our embattled military.

In an interesting spin to the story Mr. Gates made remarks stating that the upsurge in violence across Iraq since the “surge” began was proof that the surge operation was working. “I think that we expected that there would be in the short-term an increase in violence as the surge began to make itself felt,” Mr Gates said, adding there were other “very preliminary positive signs” the security plan was working.

Let’s see.

More violence is taken as a “very preliminary positive sign”. Mr. Gates is an optimistic fellow, isn’t he? With massive bombings spread across Iraq in recent days Mr Gates has had plenty of “positive signs” to be optimistic about. I suppose that with this logic more violence is desirable and will give the US even more positive signs that President Bush’s surge plan is working just fine. “Bring them on” as Mr. Bush once said.

I watched a story last week on TV about the history of the US escalation in the Vietnam War. One statement, a quote made by LBJ, President Johnson, shows just how much pride often overrides wisdom in the great messes that great nations manage to get themselves into.

Mr Johnson said, “I will not accept defeat. I will not be known as the Architect of defeat in Vietnam”. That statement was made just before the questionable Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which quickly followed, and President Johnson using the “blank check” given to him by congress to order all out air strikes on North Vietnam. That was a serious escalation of the war effort on the part of the Americans, thanks to LBJ’s concern about his legacy.

I wrote an article on March 2nd in part about the “thinking enemy” that our brave overworked, underpaid, US troops face in Iraq. The article has the title Iraq Troop Surge Needs Additional Troops. I was not writing about the 2,200 military police troops now approved less than a week later by Mr. Gates. This article was about 7,500 support troops being needed to back up the 21,500 combat troops being committed to the initial surge deployment.

I also wrote about a thinking enemy that was likely to be wise enough not to directly take on the surge troops in Baghdad and that the insurgents would likely attack others areas of Iraq. Indeed, it looks like this strategy is already underway. Our thinking enemy didn’t have to think for too long to decide that attacking regions that are poorly defended makes more sense from their ruthless point of view than by attacking a newly reinforced Baghdad.

How many troops will it take to secure all of Iraq? I don’t know but I expect that it is many more than we have.

I’m confident that President Bush doesn’t want to be the “architect of defeat” any more so than LBJ. However, decisions made on the basis of pride over logic and reason don’t often lead to the results that you are hoping for.

In the end we usually get what we deserve rather than what we want. This applies equally to United States Presidents as well as to mere mortals. President Bush started this war of choice. Now after four years of growing chaos and regional instability he is escalating it.

We all know what President Bush says he wants. Considering the mismanagement of the occupation effort thus far what do you think he deserves?

Tweet This Post