April 10, 2008 at 12:22 pm | In DOD, President Bush | 1 Comment
Tags: David Petraeus, Ryan Crocker, U.S. troop deployments
President Bush may have squandered much of his credibility on the Iraq war in part because of his penchant for overusing the phrases “turning the corner” and “defining moment.” The latest “defining moment” in Iraq was the battle in Basra, which to the rest of us looked like a grim portending of our eventual exit.
While the testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker didn’t tell us very much that we didn’t know, we did get one tangible bit of change: a reduction in troop tours from 15 months to 12.
Military commanders have been gunning for normalization of rotations for some time out of fear that troop strain was dampening enlistment and — much more worryingly – lowering the quality of enlistees. AP reported earlier this month that the Army has been quietly allowing spouses serving in Iraq to room together, the first time the military has ever allowed such an arrangement. No doubt commanders OK’d the sea change in policy out of concern for morale — not out of the kindness of their hearts. Continue reading Progress You Can Believe In…
April 9, 2008 at 11:07 am | In Barack Obama, DOD, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Iraq, John McCain, President Bush | 1 Comment
Tags: David Petraeus, Ryan Crocker
What were ya’ll expecting, anyway? Here are the known knowns as I see them on the Way Forward:
- What’s past is prologue. Many of the Democratic lawmakers yesterday and today devoted far too much airtime to their initial or eventual opposition to the war and to the mistakes made pre- and post-invasion. We get it. It was a huge fiasco. There’s even a very good book about it called “Fiasco.” One of the things the U.S. press corps has done very well w/r/t this war is uncover the hubris, thoughtlessness and blinding ideological fervor of the war planning. (See Frontline’s two-part series, “Bush’s War,” for all the highlights.) “In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came,” said Ambassador Ryan Crocker in all three opening statements. He is absolutely correct. Our time would be far better spent investing in a responsible way out of Iraq than on rehashing the past.
- You break it, you own it. Funny how war critics throw former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s tragically prescient advice back at President Bush without realizing it might also apply to them. Hey Congress: You voted for this war. Any lawmaker who says that they believed Bush would actually seek consensus from the U.N. beforehand is either lying or wasn’t paying any attention. Both are firing offenses, I would think. The overall theme of the hearings from the lawmakers’ POV is: Can’t we make this all go away? No. No you can’t. And you owe it to the American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and are still there risking their necks to take full moral and political ownership of this war, rather than wishing it all away. Continue reading Petreaus-Crocker Hearings As Anti-Climactic As Last Time…
