"Send more cops!"
Posted on 12/14/2006, 6:01:59 PM by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -
Sen. John McCain said Thursday that America should deploy 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to control its sectarian violence, and give moderate Iraqi politicians the stability they need to take the country in the right direction.
McCain made the remarks to reporters in Baghdad, where he and five other members of Congress were meeting with U.S. and Iraqi officials.
"The American people are disappointed and frustrated with the Iraq war, but they want us to succeed if there's any way to do that," McCain, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq's heavily fortified Green Zone.
The Arizona Republican said five to 10 more brigades of U.S. combat soldiers must be sent to Iraq. Brigades vary in size but generally include about 3,000 troops, meaning he was recommending 15,000 to 30,000 additional forces.
Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman said the delegation had met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and urged him to break his ties with anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and disarm his Mahdi Army militia.
Al-Sadr controls 30 of the 275 parliament seats and is a key figure in al-Maliki's coalition.
Currently, the U.S. military has about 140,000 troops in Iraq, and President Bush is considering a change of strategy in the country, including Baghdad, where stepped-up efforts to curtail sectarian violence failed this summer. The current U.S. force includes about 15 combat brigades made up of 50,000-60,000 soldiers, the U.S. military said Thursday.
McCain has joined other legislators and military analysts in saying that Bush sent far too few American troops to Iraq after the coalition toppled Saddam Hussein in March 2003, leading to widespread violence at the hands of Sunni Arab insurgent groups and Shiite militias.
But McCain said U.S. military commanders in Iraq had not asked the delegation for more U.S. troops, and one of the senators traveling with him didn't seem to accept his argument.
"Iraq is in crisis. The rising sectarian violence threatens the very existence of Iraq as a nation," said Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine. The current U.S. strategy in Iraq has failed, but "I'm not yet convinced that additional troops will pave the way to a peaceful Iraq in a lasting sense," she said.
"My fear is that if we have more troops sent to Iraq that we will just see more injuries and deaths, that we might have a short-term impact, but without a long-term political settlement," Collins said.
Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped dozens of people Thursday from a commercial area in central Baghdad, police said, and a car bomb killed two policemen who were trying to defuse it in Baghdad's Sadr City section, where officers were on high alert after receiving tips that militants were moving more bombs into the Shiite slum.
McCain said he realizes that only about 15 percent to 18 percent of Americans favor deploying more U.S. troops to Iraq, and that if such a move proved unsuccessful in the unpopular war it could hurt his presidential ambitions.
But the Vietnam War veteran also said that Americans must realize that if U.S. troops leave Iraq in a state of chaos, insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq "will follow us home."
Lieberman said the U.S. delegation left its meetings with al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and other Iraqi officials believing "there is a force of moderates within the context of Iraqi politics coming together to strengthen the center here against the extremists."
"We need more, not less, U.S. troops here" to improve Iraq's security, he said.
Lieberman said the U.S. delegation was "quite explicit" about "how important it is that the Iraqis themselves begin to take aggressive action to disarm the militias, to stop the sectarian violence and to involve all the people in country to governance," including promised provincial elections.
Last month, Lieberman won re-election to the U.S. Senate as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in his state of Connecticut in part because he supports the Iraq war.
The delegation also included Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Thune of South Dakota, and Republican Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois.
The Congress members were scheduled to travel on Thursday to Iraq's southern port city of Basra and to Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, a dangerous area where many insurgent groups are fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces.
--
But the Vietnam War veteran also said that Americans must realize that if U.S. troops leave Iraq in a state of chaos, insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq "will follow us home."
McCain is right, though he is off in orders of magnitude. We do not need 30,000 more troops in Iraq.
We need 300,000 more troops in Iraq.
And we shoulfd be using heavy airpower to punitively destroy those cities and towns in Sunni areas which are in rebellion, and also pound Moqtada al Sadr's compound to dust after we provoke him into striking at our forces.
We have to win in Iraq. We are losing the way we have been doing it. We are dying the death of 3000 small cuts, one by one, the will of the American people to fight is ebbing. That's what the election was about.
The President needs to exercise command authority and order a massive rolling escalation, with airstrikes into Syria too, at known camps. The Seals and Green Berets need to be in Iran fomenting rebellion. It is time to actually, finally, really and truly GO TO WAR.
Otherwise, defeat and collapse face us.
Unless he has some specific attack plans in mind, what he is recommending is 15,000 to 30,000 additional targets.
Do it and crush the terrorist once and for all, including Sadr, then if the Government is still standing and the Iraqi Military is still growing just declare victory.
There's hope for him, I suppose......
Gunmen kidnap dozens in Baghdad
This was done in broad daylight and done by men ......
Gunmen dressed in military uniforms have kidnapped dozens of people from a commercial area in central Baghdad, according to Iraqi police.
That attitude is dominant in the Congress...especially the Senate....
We are not like the Russians. Now we are the good guys and the best way to ensure security in Iraq is to pour in more troops like McCain proposed.
December 14, 2006
Is McCain Inevitable?
****************************AN EXCERPT ****************************
Robert Novak sees the beginnings of a GOP effort to consolidate itself behind one candidate for 2008 even this early in the primary process, paralleling similar efforts in 1996 (Robert Dole) and 2000 (George Bush). In this case, the "corporate" choice might be John McCain:
Until we kick the hell out of Iran and Syria things will not improve.
We don't need to kill indiscriminately. We do need to slaughter the militias, and we don't need more troops to do it.
The reason the insurgents are so tenacious is that they know they have the Drive-By Media and the rest of the Democrats on their side. They know that the Democrats will wear us down until we fail like they did in Vietnam. It is a failure of the Bush administration that they haven't led the Republican Party in opposing the Democrat sedition and making the case for the war against jihad-ism.
McCain is no military strategist, he is a craven Washington politician, and he knows that he needs to position himself as contrary to the President in order to please his constituency, (the Drive-By Media), but has to appear hawkish in order to have a shot at the Republican nomination.
If McCain and the rest of the Republicans had joined Bush and our armed forces in bringing the truth to the American people, instead of either using every opportunity to stab Bush in the back or cower before the Democrats, the insurgents would be demoralized, not the American people.
Bingo. McCain is just being a self-serving politician, as usual.
I am getting extremely piss the hell off over this whole pile of crap. Lots of assholes that think they know what is best. And all don't look at the facts on the ground. I do not believe this clowns are talking directly with our ground command and asking the correct questions.
I honor your eloquence.
Nuts, put more in Iraq only if they're using it to stage against the Axis of Evil states.
15,000 to 30,000 more troops = 15,000 to 30,000 more targets.
Let the Iraqis do it.
Build them up. Turn them loose.
I've noticed the call from Washington has changed from "control or disband the militia" to "break ties with al-Sadr".... interesting change....
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.