Posted on 12/14/2006 9:22:32 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
I expected the report of the Iraq Study Group (or ISG, known in my home as the Iraq Surrender Group) would be bad, but what they delivered was quite horrendous. Retired Special Operations Master Sergeant James Hanson titled his post on it at the famous BlackFive blog “Group Studies Iraq- Fails to find clue bag.” Actually, he concludes, they can’t even tell you the color of the clue bag.
Here was a commission tasked fix a war and almost none of them had even served in the military. James Baker and Chuck Robb both saw combat as Marines, but for Baker it was over 50 years ago and neither served above the company level. No commissioner has counter-terror or counter-insurgent expertise; most have no foreign policy experience and the rest date from the Cold War. Somehow, we got a group that combined the worst qualities of dinosaurs and neophytes.
Spencer Ackerman of the liberal magazine American Prospect described the group perfectly:
“Given the specific lineup…the most conspicuous absence is that of supermodel Heidi Klum. Sure, she has no relevant experience in foreign policy, nor any real knowledge of Iraq -- but neither do commissioners Sandra Day O'Connor, Vernon Jordan, Alan Simpson, or Edwin Meese. What Klum does have to offer is a lesson completely lost on the commission, one taught each week on her hit reality show ‘Project Runway’: you're either in, or you're out. When it comes to Iraq, it's good advice.”
Not surprisingly, the group’s assessment of conditions in Iraq lines up with mainstream media accounts, but not with what troops see on the ground. On his third tour as an embedded journalist, Bill Roggio reports that the Marines patrolling the roads around Fallujah and Ramadi find uneventful missions are “typical,” and IEDs are usually spotted and destroyed before they hurt anyone. If the Iraqi Army is really the disaster that the ISG says, someone forgot to tell these Marines. “They spoke highly of the [Iraqi] Army,” and called them “motivated,” Roggio reports. Meanwhile, up the road in Ramadi, Oliver North reports that the Marine’s he’s embedded with greeted the ISG report with barely restrained derision because they feel they’re beating the insurgents like a drum. Journalist Michael Fumento agrees after visiting Ramadi in October, and seeing adaptable tactics and a local population that is ready to fight for freedom from the insurgents. “Put it all together – the Forward Observation Bases…tribal cooperation, ever more Iraqi army and police, better intelligence, and public works projects. There's no ‘stay the course’ strategy here; the course changes as necessary and it's continually changed for the better. I believe we are winning the Battle of Ramadi. And if the enemy can be beaten here, he can be beaten anywhere."
Beating the insurgents doesn’t seem to be on the minds of the ISG. In their report, the word “victory” is only used in relation to things Al Qaeda might be able to accomplish. This report is a bug out plan, not a victory plan. And if the commission doesn’t see the real conditions on the ground, perhaps that’s because when they visited Iraq only one, Marine combat veteran Chuck Robb, ever left the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
Even the New York Times has rejected the commission’s tactical recommendations, quoting a number of the group’s own military advisors who say the pullout plan is unworkable. Gen. Jack Keane said it reflects “the absence of political will in Washington [more] than the harsh realities in Iraq.” Gen. Barry McCaffrey called the plan “a recipe for national humiliation.”
What is most bizarre is the commission’s plan to invite Syria and Iran to help us achieve our goals, which is sort of like General Eisenhower calling Hitler up during the Battle of the Bulge and asking him to send a couple of SS divisions to help us hold out. At a hearing on the report, Senator McCain stated bluntly what should have been obvious to the commission: “Peace talks with people who want to exterminate us are not going to be productive.” Iranian president Ahmadinejad wants us to convert or die and wants every Jew to just die, but James Baker and his ISG crew see a peace partner in him. Of course they can make it work, because they’re so smooth and knowledgeable. Just trust them. As Hanson of BlackFive asks, “How much more lost in space can you get than that?”
After watching Baker’s press conference the day the report was released, Bill Bennett wrote: “In all my time in Washington I've never seen such smugness, arrogance, or such insufferable moral superiority. Self-congratulatory. Full of itself. Horrible.” As the unelected Baker hands us a study in stupidity, acts like a savior and expects to issue demands to President Bush and the Congress, most Americans will come to agree with Bennett’s assessment.
Baker: So, Ms. Klum, does my report on Iraq make me appear more young, vibrant and virile?
Klum: Gosh, Mr. Baker, I thought you were reading me to sleep!"
If anyone wants on or off my column ping list, please notify me here or by freepmail. These columns run every two weeks.
Silverback's column ping!
If anyone wants on or off my column ping list, please notify me here or by freepmail. These columns run every two weeks.
The entire concept and recommendations of the group are just too absurd! I have read about stuff like this before. The really crazy people are given something to cling to, so they stop wreaking havoc. Makes them feel like their crazy opinions are really valued...
How to win in Iraq?
Why is a commission even considered? The people who need to determine what is needed to win have been there in the thick of it for years.
Is the military NOT telling W to take the gloves off and let them kill the trouble makers?
Is the military NOT telling W this PC war is bull$hit?
And the press needs to be banned from Iraq since they fail to tell the real story.
It is as if in January, 1945, Ike had sent a messanger across the line to negotiate a truce with Hitler and agreed to withdraw all Allied troops behind the Sigfried. line and call off our pushback. Reasonable from one persepective. Stalin sure thought it possible, which is probably why he agree to launch an offensive early. If the Allies dealt with Hitler, then the Germans could have moved reserves to the East and made things a lot harder on the Red Army. That's why the policy of unconditional surrender was so important. There could be no battlefield deals with the enemy.
Congress came up with the commission. We all know how low the aggregate IQ of the U.S. Congress is.
Is the military NOT telling W to take the gloves off and let them kill the trouble makers? Is the military NOT telling W this PC war is bull$hit?
Well, where's your citation for that? No offense, but the world's full of people who think this war is being run out of the women's studies program on some university campus, and they're dead wrong. For example, all sorts of folks will tell you we went easy on Fallujah and were soft on the terrorist, and will tell you both were the result of PC, when actually the wait on Fallujah was a decision by local commanders that worked beautifully.
Exactly. And if the Bush Doctrine is not enforced, we will see the same sorts of disasters that negotiating with Hitler would have brought.
Too rich! Baker doesn't even know the color of the clue bag. You gotta love it.
Seriously, this ISG report and Baker are tres dangerous.
I so wish I had come up with that line.
Me too. I'm still laughing 30 minutes later.
Sadr
Sadr being left alive was a tactical error, not a "Oh, let's not hurt the poor Arabs" manuever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.