Since We're Stuck...

...why not look at how we got there?

by DemFromCT

The stuck part was confirmed by our generals, in the NY Times:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 19 - American military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment on Wednesday of the war in Iraq, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come to Baghdad last weekend to consult with the new government.

In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last "many years."

Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to insurgents and allow American forces to begin stepping back from the fighting. General Abizaid, who speaks with President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld regularly, was in Washington this week for a meeting of regional commanders.

They can blather all they want about how the terrorists are violent because they're losing, or how 'defensive' they've become about their methods, but:

In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year.

Against this, he said, there has been a lull in insurgents' activity in Baghdad in recent days after months of some of the bloodiest attacks, a trend that suggested that American pressure, including the capture of important bomb makers, had left the insurgents incapable of mounting protracted offensives. But the officer said that despite Americans' recent successes in disrupting insurgent cells, which have resulted in the arrest of 1,100 suspects in Baghdad alone in the past 80 days, the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured.

"I think that this could still fail," the officer said at the briefing, referring to the American enterprise in Iraq. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail.

So to remind us of how we got here is this little matter of the Downing Street memo. For a well-written summary, Salon has the unique perspective of Juan Cole (subscription - watch a commercial if you have to):

The lies that led to war
A leaked British memo, and other documents, make it clear that Bush intended all along to invade Iraq -- and lied about it to the American people. The full gravity of his offense has not yet sunk in.

See, it's that 'sunk in' part that we have to get used to. It took what seemed like forever (but was really until Tet) before the Vietnam War was seen for what it was - a hubristic mistake by the best and the brightest.

When Newsweek's source admitted that he had misidentified the government document in which he had seen an account of Quran desecration at Guantánamo prison, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?"

Di Rita could have said the same things about his bosses in the Bush administration.

Tens of thousands of people are dead in Iraq, including more than 1,600 U.S. soldiers and Marines, because of false allegations made by President George W. Bushand Di Rita's more immediate boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and equally imaginary active nuclear weapons program. Bush, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly made unfounded allegations that led to the continuing disaster in Iraq, much of which is now an economic and military no man's land beset by bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and political gridlock.

And the bottom line?

Going to war is the most serious decision a president can make. It should never be approached in a cavalier fashion. American lives, the prestige and influence of the country, international relations, the health of its defenses, and the future of the next generation are at stake. Yet every single piece of evidence we now have confirms that George W. Bush, who was obsessed with unseating Saddam Hussein even before 9/11, recklessly used the opportunity presented by the terror attacks to march the country to war, fixing the intelligence to justify his decision, and lying to the American people about the reasons for the war. In other times, this might have been an impeachable offense. ...

Why has there not been more outrage in the United States at these revelations? Many Americans may have chosen to overlook the lies and deceptions the Bush administration used to justify the war because they still believe the Iraq war might have made them at least somewhat safer. When they realize that this hope, too, is unfounded, and that in fact the war has greatly increased the threat of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, their wrath may be visited on the president and the political party that has brought America the biggest foreign-policy disaster since Vietnam.

This is inevitable and inescapable. The Downing Street Memo is merely confirmation of what actually happened. The right gets all exercised about 'Bush Lied, People Died' chants, etc. because in their view it's just not that simple. In fact, that's apparently exactly what's happened. So the next level of defense is, 'well, okay, he lied but as long as it turns out okay, the American people will support him'.

Read the generals' opinion. It's not turning out okay. And it isn't gas prices (and it's certainly not the filibuster) that's sinking the Senate and the President. it's reality. From the WSJ (subscription):

"If you're a member of Congress ... you'd better be looking over your shoulder," says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who helps conduct the Journal/NBC survey. His Republican counterpart, Bill McInturff, adds that a particular concern for incumbents looking to 2006 is unhappiness among senior citizens, a group that disproportionately turns out to vote in midterm elections.

While the survey contains warning signs for members of both parties, it is especially problematic for Republicans as the party in power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. The poll of 1,005 adults, conducted May 12-16, shows that the greatest erosion in congressional approval has occurred among self-described Republicans. The poll's margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.

Just 42% of Americans say their representative deserves to be re-elected, while a 45% plurality calls it time for someone new. When Americans are asked which party they want to control Congress after the 2006 elections, Democrats hold a 47%-40% edge -- the party's best showing since the Journal/NBC survey began asking that question in 1994.

The money quote?

"Seniors are pretty riled," Mr. McInturff says, and if it persists "that has consequences in midterm elections."

By 2006, it won't be just seniors.

 

Comments

[NG]

By 2006, it won't be just seniors.

Reinstitute a fair, all-inclusive draft, and it won't just be seniors. BTW, the lack of such a fair, all-inclusive draft is the main underlying reason why so many American voters can play chickhawk in this Iraq area! They can because they can get away with it without short term consequneces. Long term consequences are evidently incapable of being seen or understood by the American psyche probably because of the press NOT doing its background investigation job in these areas!!

[RonK, Seattle]

"Smells like 1994" ... or words to that effect, by former Gingrich Republican congressman Joe Scarborough on MSNBC last night.

Comeuppance is coming.