Rush Limbaugh Live Thread Monday Dec 11th, 2006

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTgxM2NiMTZlNmNjZmI2NjJjYzNkZTRkNWIxZGRmMjg=

The just-released report from the Iraq Study Group (ISG) is not a blueprint for victory: This, according to those who would certainly have a better handle on the actual on-ground dynamics of the Iraq War than anyone else — American military officers, advisers, and special operators.

Perhaps the report, including its 79 recommendations, is a new step toward a bright future for Iraq and the world.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking based on a lot of handholding bipartisanship to temporarily salve the angst of the American people.

Either way, many of the study’s revelations and recommendations, according to some military officers, are “nothing new.” Imbedding teams of American military advisers into Iraqi combat units, for instance (one of the recommendations), has been a reality since U.S. forces first began standing up Iraqi security forces: Though the specific recommendation does call for a dramatic increase in the numbers of those advisors.

Other officers contend the study is an important first step aimed at regaining the upper hand in a political/military operation that is literally on fire and burning out of control.

All agree the report is not an absolute formula for success. Nothing guarantees success in war. But it’s what we have for the time.

During a Wednesday press conference, Jonathan Karl (ABC) posed the following question to the ISG panel: Tell me why should the President give more weight to what you all have said, given that, as I understand, you went to Iraq once — with the exception of Senator Robb, none of you made it out of the Green Zone — why should he give your recommendations any more weight than what he’s hearing from his commanders on the ground in Iraq?

Major Scott T. Davis, a U.S. Army adviser to the Iraqi army, tells National Review Online, he agrees with the spirit of Karl’s question.

“Right, wrong, or indifferent, when congressmen are on their supposed fact-finding missions, they’re not finding out what’s really going on,” says Davis, who six weeks ago was imbedded with an Iraqi tank battalion. “You’ve got to get outside the Green Zone, and I don’t mean just a helicopter ride out to a Super FOB [forward operating base]. You’ve got to get on the ground to make an accurate assessment.”

Chris Berman, a former Navy SEAL who oversees Granite Global (a Kuwait-based company that builds armored vehicles currently running up-and-down Iraqi highways), tells NRO, “We’ve had input from politicians, even Hollywood celebs and rock stars regarding Iraq. But have we actually stopped to ask for the input of those Americans who are actually serving on the ground or those who are supporting those on the ground? No, and these are the people who are working with and around the Iraqi people everyday. Nobody seems to have been listening to them.”

“The good thing about the ISG is that they’ve taken the gloves off and peeled back several layers of the onion to see what’s there,” says Davis. “What I also like is that in the hearings, the group has not gone the way of the political rhetoric that has been thrown around by politicians and the media.”

Davis, who contends the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a necessary risk, is cautiously optimistic about the changes to our approach in Iraq proffered by the ISG study.

“Already the media is making these sweeping assertions that these recommendations are the changes that need to be implemented,” he says. “Well, hold the phone: It’s like a mission order. This is a plan that might work, but it might not. The problem has so many aspects and avenues of approach it’s hard to attack it. One of the things I found to be critically important for the ISG to make its assessment was its ability to analyze the situation with Iran and Syria. Iranian weapons have in fact been used against me and my troops, so I know firsthand the Iranians have had a hand in Iraq.”

Like other officers, Davis believes that dialogue with other nations in the region — as the study also recommends — is important. But how effective that dialogue may be is anyone’s guess. Iran, for instance, can't be trusted to honor any promises made. It is supporting global terrorism, calling for the annihilation of Israel, penly defying the United Nations, seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, cutting deals for missile technology (and who knows what else) with newly nuclear North Korea.

In the short term, however, if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were to somehow come to a hands-off agreement regarding Iranian involvement in Iraq (or persuading the Shiia militias in Iraq to lay down their arms), it could certainly be measured in terms of the actions of the Shiia militias. And even short-time cooperation between the various factions in Iraq might be capitalized on for the long-term by the Iraqi government and security forces.

Col. Jeff Bearor (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.) says the ISG report is certainly a plan, but not necessarily for victory.

“The ISG report is a way to give the Iraqi government a little more time to get their act together,” Bearor, a former operations officer with the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and later chief of staff of the Marine Corps Training and Education Command, tells NRO. “Then we can withdraw, say that we tried, and leave the Iraqis to succeed or fail. Chances of Iraqi success on their own, in the absence of a concerted effort backed by sufficient U.S. ground combat power to defeat the insurgency before the Iraqis take over, is problematic.”

Not all soldiers and sailors march in lock-step with one another in their approaches to the Iraq War or the findings of the ISG. For instance, Rear Admiral Hal Bernsen (U.S. Navy, ret.) says the recommendations are sound, substantive, and a legitimate means of mitigating what has become a real mess.

“We’re not talking about a military operation,” Bernsen, a former Naval aviator and former commander of the U.S. Middle East Force (today, the U.S. Fifth Fleet), tells NRO. “This is a political situation. So these folks [members of the ISG] may have gone to Iraq one time [as ABC’s Jonathan Karl suggested], but they also spoke to approximately 200 people, about 15 or 20 of whom I know personally. And I can tell you they are as ‘expert’ on Iraq as anyone could be. And commanders on the ground were certainly interviewed by the ISG.”

He adds, “The report is honest, straightforward, and easy to read without spin.”

Retired U.S. Army Lt. General John Bruce Blount, former chief of staff of Allied Forces Southern Europe, tells NRO, the ISG is “well balanced,” and the report is “a very good synopsis” of the problems we are facing in Iraq.

“The president needs to have someone now who can string this thing all together and sequence it, and I hope [newly confirmed Defense Secretary] Bob Gates can do that,” Blount says. “Sequencing — what do we do, when and how — is what’s important right now. Sequencing doesn’t mean you have to have a deadline for withdrawal.”

It does mean there is work to do. But there are home-front problems, which go to the heart of the Iraq War problems — and to a greater degree, Global War on Terror problems.

“It's unfortunate that when our military is finally meeting terrorists head on, many Americans want us to pull back,” Major Neil F. Murphy, a Marine officer who served in Iraq and is currently based in the Western Pacific, tells NRO. “Iraq is a front on the War on Terror. Terrorists will meet us in our country or there regardless of what course we take. For years, the military has sustained continued attacks from terrorists. U.S. citizens were largely apathetic about it until 9/11. Now, they are forgetting again.”

“The Jihadis, Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and others are at war with America and the West no less than the Soviet Union was at war with us for 50 years,” he says. “The military is carrying nearly the entire load in Iraq. The rest of the U.S. government is not at war. Much of America hasn’t caught on yet, and the ISG report does nothing to help make this clear for Americans.”

Then there is a friend of mine, a field-grade Army infantry officer who just returned from Iraq (and will ship back in 2007) who told me Wednesday evening, “to meet the goals of the president, to establish a survivable democracy will require three times the number of troops we have now, and we’re going to have to go in and kill off all the militias. We basically have to invade that country all over again.”

— A former U.S. Marine infantry leader, W. Thomas Smith Jr. writes about military issues and has covered conflict in the Balkans and on the West Bank. He is the author of five books, and his articles appear in a variety of publications.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1751395/posts

The Need for the Iraq War (Spelled Out Plain and Simple) Myth Debunker | 12/10/06 | Yomin Postelnik

Posted on 12/10/2006 2:42:07 PM CST by Yomin Postelnik

The Necessity of the War in Iraq - Unfortunate But Needed

With all the uproar about the war the reasons why we're there have been all but forgotten. Unfortunately, even a cursory view of the situation, the way it is and without the hype, shows the necessity of the operation, not only because we're there, but mainly because this operation was needed all along. This is proven by a rudimentary analysis of cold hard facts, something missing in almost all discussions.

To begin with, UN weapons reports documented every weapon owned by Saddam in the 90s as well as as all that had been seized or destroyed to date. Based on these reports Saddam controlled thousands upon thousands of tons of weapons that could have done serious harm. By their own admission, the previous regime had stockpiles of VX, Sarin, Anthrax and Mustard Gas. Many of these items were found, as were 500 tons of more or less unenriched uranium, I say "more or less" because the anti-war at all costs paper, the New York Times, found evidence that Saddam had begun to enrich this stockpile, reporting on May 22, 2004 that 1.8 tons had already been transformed to low-enriched uranium.

Opponents of the war originally asked: What about Iran and North Korea? But they fail to realize two things. Unlike Iran and North Korea, Iraq had been given 12 years and warning upon warning to comply with destruction of their weapons piles. Had we still failed to act the threat of sanction have been rendered meaningless and there would have been no hope of a diplomatic solution with Iran or North Korea. Furthermore, concentrating first on Iran and North Korea fails to take into account the very nature of the threats posed by each. Iran and North Korea have one goal, to become nuclear and will not attack us beforehand. They have their eye on the ball. As such, we had a window of time in which to try several non-military options. This cannot be said of Saddam's Iraq. He was content with trying to off a former US President and would have been equally content to organize or support smaller, non-nuclear attacks against us. Stopping him was therefore an immediate priority for the security of our nation.

Keep the conversation to facts. President Bush did not "lie." His reports were based on international intel and the operation was extremely necessary if we were to preserve the effectiveness of diplomatic efforts and send a message that potential dangers would be acted upon. He acted in the best interests of the nation and all congressional leaders, in both parties, who had access to the same international intel that the President and CIA did - some of it coming from French and UN sources, were in agreement at the time.

There's also a humanitarian aspect to the invasion that detractors on the left ignore. Until we entered Iraq the main criticism of our policy was that sanctions were harming the populace while doing nothing to harm Saddam. This was true and needed to be corrected. Iraqis suffered because of a lack of food and an inability to clean up the chemical damage left from the Iran-Iraq War and the first Gulf War and Americans were wrongly, but nevertheless seen as the reason for this. Removing Saddam was therefore the compassionate thing to do.

This also goes to the criticism that fighting the insurgency breeds more hatred. It is true that when fighting any enemy, the enemy will gather supporters and will feel a sense of emboldenment. But not fighting an enemy that poses a risk to you will only allow the enemy to grow and strengthen, less emboldened than when war is declared against it, but in a way that it poses a much greater danger when it's finally ready to attack - on its terms, not ours, as we'll have let it grow out of control. But as we see above, they did not need the Iraq War to hate us. Many hated us before precisely because we did not get rid of Saddam but instead imposed sanctions on the populace. Doing nothing was also not an option, as that would have clearly enabled the unfettered growth of Saddam.

But What About the Implementation?

Some like to criticize the President for not sending enough troops. Surprisingly, this argument is sometimes advanced by the anti-war critics themselves. It seems that any criticism of the war is popular, no matter what that criticism might be. It doesn't matter if one says "Bush sent too many troops," "Bush sent too few troops," "Bush lied" "Bush doesn't know the facts." Any criticism of the President, no matter from what angle or even if it's wholly contradictory to other criticism, is all lauded and applauded by the same group. But it's also all wrong and ignores pertinent facts.

Too few troops would have made the war ineffective. But too many would have turned the civilians against us and served as proof in their eyes that the insurgents' claims of an American takeover were founded. This would have also greatly weakened the current Iraqi Government, who would simply be seen as US puppets and enablers of the "takeover."

This also needs to be pointed out: Contrary to the believe that the President has a "go it alone philosophy," he is in fact one of the few who have actually listened to the generals and military strategists on the field. It is the detractors, both those who call for a withdrawal and those who call for more troops, who are "going it alone" and who are truly ignoring the advice of on the ground military experts. It is they who can cause real harm, both with their calls for a premature exit and with their calls for an intensified number of troops.

This is similar to the criticism John Kerry tried to launch against the President for not "getting Bin Laden." Kerry argued that had he "been President" he would have sent many more troops into Afghanistan and not allowed the Northern Alliance to lead the battle. Yet it's precisely because we allowed the Northern Alliance to take a lead role that the population cooperated and didn't treat us as intruders. When the war started, a former Soviet officer who had long since defected told me that while he's very supportive of American efforts, he was in Afghanistan and can attest that the population is so weary of occupiers that when the Soviets were there they trained their small children to shoot at soldiers. This former officer felt that they would see us as occupiers as well and therefore warned of a long struggle. That may well have happened had John Kerry "been President." This President fortunately had the wherewithal to listen to military experts and continues to do so. And he's being blamed for it.

In Short

To be sure, a withdrawal would only embolden the fanatics and those who wish us harm around the world. Is there any other reason why the insurgents fought especially hard before the elections, hoping to secure a change in course? It's to the great credit of this President that he is not switching course. Had the media done the same in World War 2 - asking why we're "attacking" Germany when it was Japan who attacked us, blaming Roosevelt for military failures - of which there were plenty in every battle, as is the nature of war - you can be sure that public opinion may have forced us to abandon our mission, only to have to face a stronger and harder to defeat Germany a few years later.

Let us pray that the same doesn't happen here. This President definitely deserves credit for realizing what all of us should. It is also important that the entire case be laid out repeatedly to the public, so that we do not make any dire mistakes.

Let's Not Forget - What Else We Lose By Ignoring These Facts

Aside from the risk to national security, there are many other serious issues that both the right and the left should concentrate on. There are issues affecting everyday Americans such as reform of the justice system so that we stop making career criminals out of non-violent offenders and change that system to make it both more humane and more effective, access to alternative medicine and a parent's right to choose a medical strategy for their children, tax reform, how to overhaul Social Security and Medicare and what further steps should be taken to effectively ensure national security and how to balance this with, and indeed promote, civil liberties. But all this goes by the wayside as we concentrate on blaming the President for a war he would have been derelict in duty not to have entered.

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