“America Cannot Afford To Fail.”
The words of a senior administration official talking about the contents of President Bush's speech tonight. One of the things I think the administration has done very badly is to communicate the need to succeed in Iraq.
According to a senior administration official speaking on background ahead of the president's speech, Bush will say that the hopes of 2005 were dashed in 2006 by sectarian violence that overwhelmed the Iraqi political process. He will call the situation in Iraq unacceptable to the American people and to him and admit the current strategy is not working.
Two things are clear, said the official — no silver bullet will fix the problems in Iraq and America cannot afford to fail.
The official said 80 percent of the sectarian violence is occurring within a 30-mile radius of Baghdad so getting the capital city under control is job one. This will be achieved through better, more complete operations, adequate resourcing that includes an Iraqi component and changing the rules of engagement to allow Iraqi and U.S. forces to "deal with" militias or whoever stands in the way of progress.
The troop surge will begin with the movement of paratroopers from the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division now stationed in Kuwait from Fort Bragg, N.C. Much of the expected increase would come from speeding up the timetable for some forces already scheduled to deploy, and keeping others there who were about to leave.
Bush will send 17,500 additional troops to Baghdad, with the first brigade, generally 3,500-4,000 forces, to arrive on Jan. 15, the next brigade on Feb. 15 and the rest every 30 days. Another 4,000 Marines will be sent to al Anbar province in two waves to help Iraqis go after Al Qaeda and establish local control in Sunni areas. The Iraqis will have a total of nine brigades of security forces.
Routine operating procedure for the left wing commenters who flap in here to berate me is to call Iraq, "My war". To accuse me of blindly following Bush in this. They are, of course and as usual, completely wrong. This is our war, All of America's war. Once you are in a war you have to win it or lose it. It is no longer time to argue about the reasons for going to war. It is no longer time to scream and point fingers and accuse everyone you disagree with of having evil intent. It is time to win the war. Or lose it. I do not want America to lose this.
Right now the fanatics in Iraq - backed primarily by Iran - are winning the information war with the active assistance of American and Western media. They are partners in a mutually beneficial spiral of death. The left is following their own agenda here and want America to lose this war. They can dress it up anyway they want and try to call it something else, but they want the US to lose. And withdraw. And they simply do not care how many die as a result of that retreat.
I have a very personal stake in this unlike the vast majority of the people coming here to berate me. And it is not even primarily that my oldest boy is serving his second tour in Iraq as important as that is, believe it or not. It is because I have an eleven year old son and a fourteen year old daughter.
And I do not want them having to go fight the next war that will happen - with absolute certainty - if we lose this one.
Other Links to this Post
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Don Surber » Blog Archive » Bush to Iraq: We had an election here. You guys lost — Wednesday, 10 January , 2007 @ 9:03 pm
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Sensible Mom — Wednesday, 10 January , 2007 @ 9:36 pm
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Stop The ACLU » Blog Archive » Bush Surge Speech Open Thread And Liveblogging — Wednesday, 10 January , 2007 @ 9:41 pm
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Doug Ross @ Journal — Thursday, 11 January , 2007 @ 5:24 am
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The Thunder Run — Thursday, 11 January , 2007 @ 2:52 pm
