Replies

Novak = DNC operative and American traitor

Two government officials orded Robert Novak
specifically not to publish the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame
in his July 14 newspaper column.

Sorry, but Novak is anything *but* a DNC hack.

He is however a paleocon-type who hates anything that helps isreal who is digging up nuggets to fling at his neocon nemeses. Note the point of his whole article: Blame Wolfowitz. This is one of those paleo/neo spats. Novak doing a 'see I told you so' on Wolfowitz' early optimism.

Publicly the generals are saying they have enough. Frankly, I dont understand why more troops would help when the troops we have are using restrictive tactics anyway. we probably could use a bigger force in fallujah, but they dont want to attack it as a massive show-of-force, they want to go house to house.

We could hold Iraq with 10,000 troops if our goal was simple "blow away anything that got in the way".
So it's not the troop levels, its the rules of engagement.
And the operational goal. DoD doesnt *want* to be the policemen of Iraq, get Iraqis to do that. Look at HOW MUCH WORSE it would have been for Sadr's army to directly confront American troops in every neighborhood; the sense of 'occupation' would only give more 'legitimacy' to a 'resistance to occupation'. We dont want to occupy Iraq we want to make it a stable democracy. We cant do that with US troops alone, we need Iraqis building the country.

Bottom-line, I dont know if Novak's comments are common among generals but I am sure that DoD is on the level, if they want more troops they would ask for and get them. Novak has too many axes to grind here to be more right than Genl Meyers.

wannabe