[Darkwolf377]

More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment.

Why is this a bad idea?

I would like to know from those FReepers who have some military background. Is this a good or a bad idea?

[pissant]

Not needed. Kristol has been barking up the same tree for years, while on his knees in front of John psycho McCain. Lowry is going along for the ride as his boyfriend, most likely.

Did you watch Rummy, Pace's and Abazaid's testimony in front of the Senate Panel last month. They said it would do more harm than good, and if they did not think that, they have full authority to bring in more. BTW, the numbers have creeped up in recent months. At the levels they wanted.

And FWIW, we are cleaning the streets of Baghdad just fine, with the Iraqi army's assistance. This Mf'n "we are losing...quagmire, civil war on the horizon" is getting old. I don't care if it comes from the freepers whith their heads up their asses and not paying attention or from the MSM itself.

[WOSG]

I don't think it's a bad idea, but I dont think its the best idea...

The best idea is to have MORE TRAINED IRAQI TROOPS DOING THE JOB. We shouldnt be doing the job that the Iraqis should do.


They have 277,000 Iraqi secruity forces. If its not enough, train more.

[CharlesWayneCT]

We need to get our troops out of the country, and have the Iraqi troops and police hold their country together.

I have no doubt we could put a half-million troops on the ground and there would be no violence -- until we tried to leave. We can't disarm the insurgents if we are too strong, they will just hide. Eventually we need to draw down, and when we reach the point we are at now, the insurgents would just come back

At least, that's an argument I could make. If Bush tomorrow announced another 50,000 troops, I wouldn't object to that either. I figure there are some really smart people who know a lot more than I do about the situation, and I trust Bush to listen to them and do the right thing.

[cookcounty]

As they say in SF, don't call for reinforcements, create reinforcements.

The Iraqi forces are standing up, albeit slowly. That's the answer, otherwise we will literally be there forever (My son is in Baghdad now).

[jmc1969]

I actually totally agree with the idea of sending an extra divison or two to Iraq to really damage the militias in Baghdad and insurgents in Western Iraq.

But, that said things aren't so bad we can't wait until after the November election to do it.

[pollyannaish]

The counter to that is a VAST majority of our casualties in Iraq have involved no shooting at all. And when there is shooting involved, we win every time with the numbers we have. Instead, most of our casualties are the result of IED’s of one form or another. It is nearly impossible to keep them from being emplaced, and increasing the number of their potential targets does little more than increase their number of potential victims.

If I may be so bold, I will will quote a portion of Rokke's explanations from another thread. Well worth reading if you haven't seen it. Check out his profile page re: credibility.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1698026/posts

(Hope you don't mind, Rokke. That's what you get for being so doggone articulate. :-D )

[nathanbedford]

Evidently someone has leaked a report to the Washington Post and The New York Times which could not be more pessimistic. According to these sources, the report says:

The Washington Post reported that officials who have seen a study by the Marines' top intelligence officer in Iraq say he described the situation in the province as lost. Iraq's Shi'ite-led government holds no sway there and the strongest political movement is the Iraq branch of al Qaeda, it concluded .... It said the report had concluded an additional division, some 16,000 troops, would be needed to back up the 30,000 in the province to prevent the situation from getting even worse.

Otherwise "there is nothing (the Marine command) can do to influence the motivation of the Sunni to wage an insurgency," the paper quoted the report as saying.

The report also says:

The Post said it was the first time a senior U.S. officer had filed such a pessimistic assessment from Iraq, and described it as having had an impact among policymakers in Washington.

I wonder if Mr. William Kristol saw a leaked copy of this report and this is what prompted him to make this up and call for more troops. This column like the situation seems to be getting more and more desperate. We need a plan B.,new way of thinking that is outside the box, we need some solutions, and we need them pronto.

The report also goes on to say that the senior brass deny the implications of the report. I infer from some posts on this thread that Mr. ricks, author of "FIASCO," is one of the authors of this story. He is also the author of the number one best-selling nonfiction book on the New York Times best-selling list.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1699964/posts

[Steel Wolf]

More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment.

Why is this a bad idea? I would like to know from those FReepers who have some military background. Is this a good or a bad idea?

More troops would have been good earlier on, when it was still felt by Iraqis to be a liberation and not an occupation. If we had committed to immediately training (or retraining) large numbers of Iraqi troops right off the bat, while providing some interim security in the meantime, that would have been the ideal solution.

However, given the state of Iraq, 2006, we'd either have to go a lot heavier, or a lot lighter. The force level we're at right now is pretty much the worst of both worlds, and could be termed 'as high as politically feasable'. We're trying to conduct a large mission with a medium sized force. We should either turn this into a real occupation, with real occupation numbers, or turn it into a counterinsurgency support effort, with a solid presence of special operations and support troops, and leave the day to day security to the Iraqis.

[RetiredSWO]

Increasing the number of troops merely increases the targets in counterinsurgency operations.

In addition it plays into the enemy's hands by being more akin to an occupation vice security force.