Bush Blunders on

From Capitol Hill Blue:

As the war began a distinguished retired general friend argued strenuously at a discussion club to which I belong (and that also included two former officials who would later be members of the Iraq Commission) that the Pentagon's assigned manpower was woefully shortsighted.

He was echoing the criticism of other longtime military strategists, including the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, who had just been shoved rudely into retirement for telling Congress that it would take as many as 300,000 troops to pacify Iraq.

The message to the other generals was clear: If you want to keep your job, keep your mouth shut and follow what your civilian bosses within the Bush Administration tell you, even if those geniuses are meeting criticism of the troop level by saying they are depending on the commanders on the ground to tell them what they need.

Now another top general, John Abazaid, who tried to do the job with what he was given, is retiring at 55 in an atmosphere of disagreement over the so-called "surge plan" for accomplishing what no one outside the Oval Office believes is possible -- winning the war. (Few of us can understand what victory even means in this case, seeing that U.S. troops are caught in the middle of a civil war. At best, winning probably means we finally can escape a hideous encumbrance).

The surge plan that George W. Bush seems to be favoring would put some 20,000 to 30,000 additional troops in Iraq at least temporarily to stabilize the deteriorating situation in Baghdad and to allow the Iraqi government to finally take control of the situation. More U.S. troops would be freed up to train the Iraqi military and police for our eventual withdrawal. Well, as my brother told our cousin when he finally decided to take up golf: "It's too late, Jack."

That is clearly what Abazaid believes. He is backed up not only by other military experts and a whole lot of popular opinion that regards the plan as merely augmenting the U.S. casualty lists. That is reflected by the fact that Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, who backs the quick-fix plan, has seen a decline of his support in the polls.

Suddenly the president is not talking about what the generals' want, but about what he decides is needed. And if he says we now need more troops, he reasons, we need them.

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