Cold, Hard Facts, Episode XVI

From Reality-Based Educator

Too Little, Too Late

The United States had 165,000 troops in Iraq in late 2005/early 2006 for the Iraqi national elections.

The Pentagon rotated troops out over the ensuing months and never replaced them until the troop level dropped by more than 35,000.

Now the administration is going to add 22,000 more troops in its vaunted "surge," yet even after all the surge troops are rotated into Iraq, the total number of U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq will be less than the 165,000 we had in there in late 2005/early 2006.

The Washington Post put it this way:

Bush said it is now clear that there have not been sufficient troops in Baghdad, and that part of the difference in this approach is that the plan will be adequately resourced. Yet the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq after the planned increase will be about 153,000, less than the peak of about 165,000 in December 2005. Military experts last night wondered, as one said, how a "thin green line" of 17,500 additional soldiers in Baghdad could affect the security situation in a city where many of the 5 million residents are hostile to the U.S. presence. "Too little, too late -- way too late," said retired Col. Jerry Durrant, who has worked as a trainer of Iraqi forces.

So how is Bush's vaunted troop surge really so different than previous administration war policy?

It seems to me to be just another dog and pony show designed by the administration's propaganda-meisters to delay the inevitable withdrawal of U.S. troops from a ruptured and destroyed Iraq.

The preznut's going to leave that job to the next president.

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