Presidential Address - Jan 2007

Well so far he's admitted "any mistakes made, fault lies with him." Then he said we'd be sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq.

I love the fact that his solution to his admitted mistakes is to make even more mistakes.
Maybe he thinks 2 negatives will make a positive?

Didn't he say that getting re-elected in 2004 absolved him of responsibility?

Fuck you, Mr. President. Fuck you. Those are my friends you're sending over there. You can go to hell, sir.

It's not just my friends, it's my brother, as well. After being told he wasn't ever going to worry about going over, he got informed over Christmas that he was shipping in June. Fuck you indeed, Mr. President.

My old man is there working. I know he could come home at any point he chose to but I still worry about him. Dubya pissing off all of the neighboring countries to go along with the already pissed off Iraqis is not what I hoped would come out of tonights address.

I feel for anyone who has family in the military who can't come home because of our dipshit president. Fuck him, indeed.

And Syria. Start two wars, get one free!

Same shit, different day.

Olbermann's already got it before the President even started spouting this nonsense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGmOMYJcDX8

I've been thinking Olbermann was great, but that George Wallace callback damn near sold me on him forever.

Because that sure hasn't been happening up until now.

I failed to see what exactly an additional 20,000 troops can accomplish what the existing 140,000 cannot. This will only add fuel to the fire, and will not stop sectarian violence that is raging for 4 years now. Basically, Bush is saying that he has screwed up Iraq for years now, but that he now has a brilliant plan and we must trust him this time to right his wrongs. I don't know about you, but I won't trust a Prez who was clueless before about Iraq, and even more clueless now.

doesn't he just come across like a poker player on tilt?

yeah, and keep going to the Drudge site, hes a stand up guy....

This speech, from the clips I've heard, is plainly idiotic.

If the "surge" doesn't reduce violence, then what's the fucking point? Nevermind that we shouldn't be fermenting a civil war or sabre-rattling Iran and Syria, there seems to be no discernible reason to maintain a large troop presence in Iraq. And I don't wanna hear about how if we leave things will get worse. Things have been trending reliably downward since the war began in 03.

He keeps talking about terrorists as if all this violence isn't the domain of a sectarian struggle between Sunnis and Shiites. He must think we're fucking morons.

And if this occupation of Iraq is the "definitive ideological struggle of our time" then why isn't a draft absolutely necessary? It sure was necessary to defeat the Nazis and Communism.

Oh yeah, this is just a bunch of rhetorical BS. A message as empty and hollow as it was on 9/11/01. He seems to be uninterested in solving this issue rationally, since most of his speech is intent on maintaining the lie and selling the war to us and not actually levelling with us. as to what reality actually is.

He admits that he's been fucking up, but his new plan is to throw more troops at the fire? He outlined what the differences were supposed to be in this plan from before, but it kinda seemed like all he was saying was that we'll try harder than before. He's like one of those deadbeat husbands who comes crawling back saying, "C'mon, baby, just one more chance, it'll be different this time, I promise." No real genius policy changes here. And nice to hear that Bush is going the diplomatic route in dealings with Iran (*sarcasm*).

Actually, he doesn't even man up. Notice the language. "If mistakes were made (read: not by me) then I accept responsibilty." Even in his mea culpa he can't help but spread the blame around. I think that's more of a symptom of his upbringing. Its the help's fault!

Yeah, that "if" says he doesn't think he's made any mistakes.

It just baffles me how Bush can point to Iraq being a hotbed of terrorism as a reason to stay when it was our invasion that MADE it a hotbed of terrorism. It's like stomping barefoot on an anthill but not taking your feet out because you have to kill all these ants first.

Funny thing is that the General Bush just installed to be charge of this mess said a while back that we would need to have 1 soldier/20 Iraqi just to quell the insurgency. Now Iraq has 6.8 million people I've read. This would mean we would need to send over 100K additional soldiers to dominate all our enemies in Iraq. Hell, 21500 isn't even going to be enough to lockdown Baghdad according to this new General. If Bush really was committed to winning this war, he would just put up and go full force. The reason he doesn't is because everyone knows that there is literally no backup of the size needed for the soldiers in manpower or here in the states politically. Bush would need to reinstate the draft to make that happen and he doesn't want to be the guy that tried to bring back the draft for a fuck-up that everyone would lay on him.

I don't know if this surge will work, but the biggest problem fighting the insurgency is the low number of soldiers doesn't allow the Army to hold an area after they clear it. The insurgents just lay low or come back to an area after the soldiers leave.

If 20,000 extra American troops in Baghdad can act as the backbone for the Iraqi Army units and allow them to hold each Baghdad neighborhood after they clear it, it will go a long way to reducing violence in the capitol.

The most important task is helping the Iraqi's take control of their own security. If a surge of American troops can help the Iraqi Army take over control of Baghdad from insurgents and sectarian militias, I am all for it.

But the thing is this should have been done back in 2003. I fear it's too late now to do much of anything worthwhile.

Interesting speculation over at slate.com about whether the entire surge is just an effort to position Iraq's Prime Minister as the scapegoat for the inevitable admission of defeat. "Hey, we gave that Malarki fella the tools he needed to win this thing; not our fault he couldn't deliver," etc.

A combination of delusion and desperation is still more plausible, but it's an interesting read.

[QUOTE=NoahtheStud]I don't know if this surge will work, but the biggest problem fighting the insurgency is the low number of soldiers doesn't allow the Army to hold an area after they clear it. The insurgents just lay low or come back to an area after the soldiers leave.QUOTE]

Paul Rykoff, an Iraq war vet and one of the most outspoken critics of the war has frequently called this "Iraqi whack-a-mole".
I believe he also said that the only troop surge that would make any sense would be something like 200,000 troops.

(Notwithstanding the publicised low approval rating) I'm interested in what kind of response this "surge" has generated on the ground in the US - one of the few soundbites we got on the news down here was of a military wife who said (roughly quoting, mind) "It could have been us in those towers, so anything that keeps my children safe is ok..."

Seriously, that canard of pitching a catastrofuck war in Iraq because of, or lieu of another, 9/11-style attack on Middle America isn't really still pervasive is it? I mean, I can see things are still pretty fucked over there, but I can't believe that grade-A bullshit is still carrying weight amongst sentient beings.

I do however note that Salon.com has had a couple of interesting articles in the last couple of days regarding how similar conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia and Congo et al generally have taken upwards of 10 years to resolve and that's to some extent with the aid of nation-building strategies. As opposed to what's happening here where I think the ants-nest analogy made above is particularly apposite.

ETA: I realise this is not the most appropriate place to beg a shorthand education in American Civics, but FFS, is there anything you lot (in a legislative/ congressional sense) can actually do to stop this arsehole, like, now??? I hear the Senate making tough that they have to be persuaded about this "surge" before it goes through, but can they actually stop him? Cutting off the funds would, I dare say, only get more soldiers killed more quickly and there goes the whole "supporting the troops" baseline.

Actually, it would be an almost poetic end to the war. It began with the impossible request of telling Saddam to give up weapons he didn't have. It ends with the impossible request of Malaki to win a war that's already lost.

Neat.

They could theoretically cut off funds, but they won't for the reason you said. Even if the Democratic leaders in Congress wanted to push for it, it would never get a majority of votes (again, for the reason you said).

The main thing that (you'd think) would work would be a combination of public outcry and political flack--but Bush's current dumbfuck "surge and accellerate" solution to the "Iraq problem", which the U.S. public widely disapproves of, in the face of a loss of political power in his own party over how he's handled the war thus far, just proves that he's not going to budge on his overriding ideology.

The House of Representatives could vote to impeach him, but right now it wouldn't draw the majority of votes needed for impeachment. If by some miracle nearly all of the Democrats decided to vote for impeachment, then he would be tried in the Senate--where you need a two-thirds majority vote to be removed from office. Which would never happen in this Senate.

The thing that really pisses me off is how he thinks 20,000 more troops is going to make a big difference. If you look at it geographically and spread those troops out over the area involved we're not really adding that many troops to any one area. Basically he's trying to stop a damn from breaking by patching it with bubble gum.

I hope not.

Did he say we needed 200,000 surge for the whole country or just for Baghdad? I have read many Iraqi Bloggers who state that Baghdad's security is the key to the whole country's security. Baghdad's security will depend on the Iraqi Army and Police ultimately but if 20,000 troops can provide enough backbone and support for this new attempt at securing the capitol, it might work.

I think the American troops main task will be making sure the security crackdown is not seen as too sectarian by the Sunnis who fear the mostly Shiite Iraqi Army. The American troops also need to make sure the Iraqi Army deals with the Shiite militias who they have ignored in the past.

If violence from the Sunni insurgents and the Shiite death squads can be reduced enough in the city, it will lower sectarian tensions and allow the different groups to be able to compromise on things like oil revenue sharing and revisions to the Iraqi constitution. What's the alternative, full-blown civil war?

At this point, Bush really only has to ride it out for another 20 months before he can pass this clusterfuck he created along with Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al, to the next presidential elect. I just realized that, and it'll be a goddamned disgrace if he leaves this shit entirely unresolved and never has to take full blown responsibility for it after leaving office. Twenty months isn't that long, Bush and Co. can certainly stall things out that long until the 2008 election race starts to heat up and the public attention shifts. As long as the insurgent violence continues at the same rhythm, I can see the conflict stretching that far and being dumped into the lap of the next (Democrat?) president.

If these guys are just coasting till '08, then this seems to be the most effective means of doing so. Something has to be done about the situation in Iraq, so how about . . . oh, 20,000 new troops. That good enough? Not an actual response to the problems on the ground, not an adequate reaction to the facts, just a piecemeal movement so Bush can give a half-assed speech to a halfwit electorate (after reading Obama's book I know I shouldn't hate on the general American populace, but fuckin A, someone voted Bush in, didnt they?). These guys are just treading water. And in predictable fashion, this plan has not been thought through. Sending troops into Sadr city in a 'force-surge-deathmatch' will not return the results the military is looking for. Hey, so long as Im out here fuckin around, how about I piss on this hornet's nest? I recognize the need to rein in al-Sadr's militia and clamp down on the sectarian violence, but is house to house fighting the the slums of Baghdad's most volatile district really gonna accomplish those goals?

Two quick thoughts:

I know the Sunni and the Shi'a are at each other's throats, but is anyone here wondering if all this 'sectarian violence' is Iraqi in origin? I mean, John motherfucking Negroponte is large and in charge of the super secret spy shit . . . Nicaraguan Death Squads? [if my conjecture here is entirely incorrect, someone please correct me so I don't make it again . . . but I can't put anything past this fucking administration, especially any thing that has already been executed by these same. fucking. people]

Where exactly are the 20,000 troops for this 'surge' going to come from, especially if this 'surge' lasts 2-3 years as the Generals seem to be indicating? And we already have commandos in Somalia (a fuck-up if I've ever heard of one) and Iran? Get your draft-deferment status ready, people, its gonna get worse before it gets better/

If Bush is doing this knowing it will fail and is only trying to save face, then he truly is a scumbag.

I think he chooses not to accept the posssibility that it will fail.

"If" you are a dumb, insane, egomaniac you never admit to doing anything wrong.

Bush needs to play the board game Risk a couple times to brush up on how and when to use troops. Then he needs to legitimately graduate from elementary school.

I think Axis & Allies lends itself more to the image he'd love to portray. Of course, I have no idea which side he'd actually play as.

At this point I don't know that we can do much more than declare victory and leave. Maybe the 20,000 are going to drive the Uhaul trucks.

I'm of two minds on the subject. On one hand, we definitely need to extricate our military from the area and have them available for purposes of relevant defense against more legitimate threats. Everyone can agree on that. On the other hand, if we just leave without establishing any kind of stable governing force capable of staving off an insurgent uprising, the country will attract more extremists who hate the West and be susceptible to the influence of Syria and Iran. Also, we have a basic responsibility to help out the country considering it was us who initially helped catapult it into the current fucked-up state of affairs.

Both can happen before the end of 2008. The Iraqi military and the most of the provinces are planned to be transferred to the Iraqi government's control by the end of 2007. The Iraqi's will have a full year in 2008 to control there own security with American troops as backup.

If the Iraqis can show that they are at least capable of enough security to keep the government stable during that year, American troops could draw down to less than 50,000 or so troops remaining on Iraqi bases when the new US President takes over in 2009.

I disagree. I don't think that a legitimately stable Iraqi military and police force can be established within one year, or even before the 2008 elections. They've had over 3 years and there hasn't been very significant progress--will one year make much of a difference? Likely there will be something established in the way of a military presence supported by US forces, and this would allow the Bush admin to perhaps say, "We gave them a chance to do the job with our backup for a year, now we can leave and if the country goes to hell it will be their fault." That gives them a nice little strategy for the 2008 elections: If they time it right, they can actually start withdrawing large numbers of troops in the fall of 2008 under the pretext I just mentioned and the Republicans can use that to try to make it look like the conflict is drawing to a resolution.

It's not like they are starting from scratch in building the Iraqi forces this year. The Iraqi forces have slowly been building and being trained to take the lead over those 3 years and they are reaching the point where they are less than a year from taking total control according to US Generals. They will still need back up for awhile, but they will be running their own areas with the orders coming from the Iraqi government instead of the US military.

Sept 2005 - 11 Iraqi Battalions in the Lead

Jan 2006 - 33 Battalions in the Lead (1 Iraqi Army Division)

Feb 2006 - 49 Battalions in the Lead

June 2006 - 69 Battalions in the Lead

Aug 2006 - 85 Battalions in the Lead

Dec 2006 - 92 Iraqi Battalions in the Lead in more than half of Iraqi's territory (8 Divisions out of 10 Total)

(In the Lead means capable of coordinating, planning and executing security operations independent of coalition forces in their own areas of responsibility.

In September 2006, the Iraqi Air Force, Navy and 2 Army Divisions were handed over to the control of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense for the first time. An additional Iraqi Army division was put under their control in December.

Three Iraqi provinces have already been turned over in the second half of last year with the last one in December. The rest are supposed to be turned over during the course of this year.

I don't think that this means that there will be a decrease in violence in Iraq, but I do think it means that it will be mostly Iraqis confronting it instead of Americans by the end of 2008. The insurgents/militias will still be capable of carrying out suicide bombs, hit-and-run attacks against the Iraqi forces but won't be able to overthrow the government by force alone. The violence won't go away until the different groups come to a political solution over several issues, mainly sharing oil revenues.

I hope you're right, but there is another dissenting group of US military generals who have voiced their disagreement with the battle-readiness of the Iraqi forces and spoken about it before Congress.

I do agree with you that there won't necessarily be a dramatic decrease in the violence in the country over the next two years, just so long as we provide the resources to create an Iraqi infrastructure capable of dealing with it on their own. Either way, by the end of 2008 will we be seeing troop withdrawals from Iraq?

A troop surge without a regional political solution will not just yield questionable results. It is bound to fail. It is a hail mary pass to prolong the political careers of politicians here at home.

And what about the whole "we will stand down when they stand up?" If those numbers are to be believed, we should be lowering numbers of troops. Truth is, that those numbers are kind of misleading anyways since the Iraqi troops rank and file are rife with insurgents and sectarian loyalists.

20,000 troops will do nothing to help this problem. Period.

I agree that the ultimate solution is political one, but an internal Iraqi political solution is way more important than a regional one.

I think reducing our troops a year after the Iraqi government takes control over it’s entire security force falls squarely inside “we will stand down when they stand up?" We are talking about huge amount of troops and the security of an entire nation, not just swapping which security guard service watches over the local mall.

I agree that 20,000 extra troops just patrolling by themselves will not have more than a temporary effect, but the goal of these additional troops is to provide more embedding within the Iraqi Army to help speed up their training and also to help the Iraqi Army crack down on violence within Baghdad, the toughest nut to crack in Iraq. If the troops are used correctly, it would be a force multiplier for the Iraq Army.

Important Note – Yesterday, an additional Iraqi Army division was turned over from American to Iraqi control. That Iraqi division will be in charge of the security in Mosul, Iraq's 3rd largest city. I find it strange that major newspapers are failing to report something this important.

If the troop surge is being sold as ancillary to some sort of visible, results-oriented Iraqi initiative, then there could be some hope (more than is being portrayed in the media, anyway). The reason there's so much resistance to 'escalation' is probably related to the way the Bush Administration is presenting the whole endeavor: there's little talk of how the troops will be used in setting the field for the Iraqi Army, and even less talk of what sort of results the Iraqi Army will need to show. Its this lack of discernible objectives for the eventual US withdrawal that is leading many people to conjecture the Bush Regime is just blundering along as usual.

Most troubling, to my mind, is the fact that much of the Iraqi security services are riddled with sectarian elements. Its not gonna do much good to hand the reins over to the Iraqis if the Army implodes as soon as it gets a chance. Im not one to buy into the whole 'its hopeless, lets just get the fuck out now' position - like Colin Powell predicted, 'we broke it, we bought it'. Unfortunately, Iraq is our primary situation now, and our country, and everyone in it, is responsible for what happens in that country, to its people. If the Administration would set some tangible objectives for the Iraqi army, be clear as to the path our strategy will take in handing control over to the Iraqi army, and be flexible in crafting a post-handover effort in tandem with the Iraqi government (I would suggest removing American forces from Iraqi borders in a phased withdrawal, creating mobile response forces to respond to situations beyond Iraqi capability, and working with regional powers to stabilize and confront sectarian conflict [yes, this means Iran and Syria]), then I believe there would be much more public and political support for American obligations in Iraq. Instead, the right is demagoguing both the incoming Democratic leadership and the media, claiming neither supports the troops, and characterizing all the questioning of Bush's policies as 'cutting and running'.

Given the way the Bush Administration is approaching this whole situation, Im not entirely convinced withdrawing from Iraqi borders is on the drawing board. After all, we have built a number of gigantic, permanent bases in the country. Maybe the thinking is we'll stay in Iraq in the same way we stayed in Germany, thereby giving us a dynamic projection of presence right next to Iran. This is a horribly misguided and terrible idea.