Jeez... even us losers who just work fires for a living know that the command has to be singular... even if you have a combo of Fed, state, and local resources you only have one guy in charge... the guy who is most qualified to be in charge. When we do change commanders, we make everyone stop work for a second and verbally acknowledge that a change in command has been made and that they know who is in charge. I can't imagine having a situation like this... we'd get people killed. ________________ Hawks knock surge plan's command structure Buried in the Bush escalation plan is a who's-in-charge nightmare that violates U.S. military doctrine. Now even John McCain and Frederick Kagan are balking. By Mark Benjamin http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/29/split_command/print.html Jan. 29, 2007 | As the Senate nears an unprecedented debate on President Bush's escalation of the Iraq war, almost all the public criticism has been aimed at the inadequate size of the new forces being sent to Baghdad (21,500 troops) and the extreme difficulty of reversing the course of the civil war. But last week, little noticed by the press and public, the Bush plan began to be attacked on a surprising new front -- by Iraq hawks, like Sen. John McCain, concerned that the split command structure for the operation violates basic military doctrine. The Baghdad surge plan, announced by the president on Jan. 10, calls for the new U.S. soldiers to be embedded with Iraqi forces, who will take the lead. But while the U.S. troops would report to American officers, their Iraqi counterparts, in an apparent sop to national sovereignty, would report to Iraqi officers. The potentially disastrous result: two separate and independent command structures within the same military operation. "I know of no successful military operation where you have dual command," McCain told Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last Tuesday. Petraeus, heralded by the Bush White House as the man who would make the surge work, signaled his agreement, telling McCain, "Sir, I share your concern." These concerns threaten to deprive Bush of the support of many of the outside military experts who originally championed a plan for escalating the war by surging troops into Baghdad. The American Enterprise Institute's Frederick Kagan expressed his fears in an interview Friday about putting the Iraqis in charge and establishing two separate chains of command. "This is a major issue," he said. "In any military operation, dual chains of command are a problem. I think the administration has made a mistake." McCain and Kagan, along with Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the Army, advanced their own 20,000-soldier, American-led surge plan early this month, releasing a document at AEI, a hawkish Washington think tank . But Keane too expressed his reservations about Bush's proposed command structure in testimony on Capitol Hill last week. "When a platoon or company of U.S. forces and a platoon or company of Iraqi forces ... are reporting to different chains of command, it makes no sense to you, it makes no sense to me," Keane told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday. "But that's exactly what we're going to do." These days, Kagan, in particular, has been careful to differentiate the AEI plan from what Bush actually proposed. The AEI blueprint advocated that American and Iraqi forces should work together -- with the more competent Americans in the lead and in control. The units would operate "within a single command structure," Kagan's written plan for a surge states. "Unity of effort is essential for success in this kind of endeavor." Small wonder that Kagan said about Bush's ideas in an interview, "This is not our plan. The White House is not briefing our plan." When Bush announced his new Iraq strategy in a televised prime-time address, it appeared that the president was following the surge doctrine set down by McCain, Kagan and Keane. But Bush added a twist as he proposed sending more than 20,000 new U.S. troops to Baghdad. The Iraqis would spearhead the fight, the president claimed, despite the woeful track record of Iraqi forces in battling the insurgency. American troops, the president said, would "work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations." Bush then said that the Iraqis would have their own military commander and two deputy commanders to oversee the 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades that purportedly would be going house-to-house in Baghdad. For military experts, who have long questioned the Bush strategy in Iraq, the dual command structure is just the latest in a long chain of avoidable errors. "It just shows you how flawed the whole scheme is," said retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, who was once the Army's senior intelligence officer, in an interview. Odom lamented that Iraq has been "just a bad nightmare" from the start. He said this White House continues to make mistakes that are "so painfully clear that sometimes I think I might be crazy." Soldiers fighting side by side yet reporting to different commands is ill-advised in all military situations. But it is particularly risky in counterinsurgency operations, which require a sensitivity to political considerations. "Any kind of military operation -- but especially counterinsurgency -- only succeeds when there is a high degree of unity of command," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, who advised the Iraq Study Group. "You want to have very clear, smooth and defined lines of control. If you have dual forms of command, you have, at the start, introduced an undesirable complication. You can only have one chef stirring the pot." The confusion of military and political necessities probably created the dual-command structure of the Baghdad surge. Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense under Reagan and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, speculates that the White House caved to demands from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki that the Iraqis maintain some control. Maliki, according to news reports, initially resisted allowing more U.S. troops into Baghdad, especially since the American mandate was to try to pacify both Sunni and Shia militants. "Maliki is trying to show that he is still in charge," Korb said, stressing like other experts that "you can't have more than one commander in the battle." Kagan, a longtime Iraq war supporter, is skeptical of the ability of Iraqi forces to lead anything. "If the plan is we are going to embed in Iraqi forces and the plan is that the Iraqis are going to lead, then the plan is going to fail," he warned. Kagan is reduced to hoping that Petraeus will resist the dual-command structure: "We have gone pretty far down this road. I don't think it will be fatal if it is going to be adjusted." Yet even Iraq war supporters would be forced to concede that the administration has been painfully slow to make any adjustments in its military strategy during the nearly fours years of the war.
CentCom Nominee Refuses To Endorse Bush’s Escalation Strategy Admiral William Fallon — Bush’s nominee to replace Gen. John Abizaid as head of U.S. forces in the Middle East —yesterday refused to endorse Bush’s escalation strategy in Iraq. In questioning during his confirmation hearing, Fallon rebuffed repeated attempts by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) –an avowed proponent of escalation — to solicit his endorsement of the new Iraq plan: Moments later, responding to a question from Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Fallon divulged he’s always “felt more comfortable in smaller numbers” rather than a larger force “decorating the landscape”: http://thinkprogress.org/
Analysis: "Surge" Far Larger Than 20,000 Troops By Paul Kiel - February 1, 2007, 12:43 PM A analysis released today by the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the administration has vastly underestimated the actual number of extra troops that will be deployed to Iraq under the president's "surge" plan. The administration's estimate of approximately 21,000 extra troops only counts combat units, according to the analysis, and because combat units require support forces, the actual number of additional troops who will be in Iraq will likely exceed 35,000. From the analysis (you can read it here): http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/cboletter/?resultpage=1& The analysis, which estimated the cost of the president's plan "from $9 billion to $13 billion for a four-month deployment and from $20 billion to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment," was sent to House Committee on the Budget Chairman John Spratt (D-SC) today.
I wonder if discussing the CBO's figures regaring Iraq is basso's list of things that musn't be mentioned in order for him to respond?
Surprise surprise! Chimpy McFlysuit backs off September expectations. -- U.S. tries to temper expectations on Iraq progress WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A September progress report on the U.S. troop increase in Iraq that President George W. Bush called an important moment for his war strategy is unlikely to be a "pivotal" assessment, officials now say. Amid unrelenting bloodshed in Iraq and scant signs of progress by the Iraqi government in meeting political benchmarks, the White House sought to temper expectations of rapid strides resulting from a security crackdown begun at the start of this year. "I have warned from the very beginning about expecting some sort of magical thing to happen in September," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters on Wednesday. "What I would suggest is, rather than it's, sort of, a pivotal moment, it is the first opportunity to be able to take a look at what happens when you've got (the troop increase) up and running fully for a period of months," he added. "It is naive to think, suddenly -- boom -- you snap a finger and you've got an instant change in the situation." Bush, in an interview with Reuters last month, said September would be an "important moment" to assess the extent of progress under the troop buildup he ordered in January. "I see it as an important moment, because (Gen.) David Petraeus (the top U.S. commander in Iraq) says that's when he'll have a pretty good assessment as to what the effects of the surge has been," he said. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1337762720070613?feedType=RSS
"What I would suggest is, rather than it's, sort of, a pivotal moment, it is the first opportunity to be able to take a look at what happens when you've got (the troop increase) up and running fully for a period of months," he added. "It is naive to think, suddenly -- boom -- you snap a finger and you've got an instant change in the situation." It makes sense.
I wouldn't call the time from the implementation of the surge, until September a "snap of the finger - instant change situation" Furthermore the whitehouse are the ones that initially said we would know for if it was working by September. Now they are backing off. They are backing off because once again the surge failed.
I don't either, but I think it is the first opportunity to be able to take a look at what happens when you've got (the troop increase) up and running fully for a period of months...In other words, I feel he was saying in September, it will be a true judgement moment, but to realize the possible upswing will be gradual...yet it should be in September that an assessment can be made, and not truly now... at least that is how I took it..
Six-month anniversary of escalation in Iraq. Six months ago, on Jan. 10, President Bush announced his plan to send more than 20,000 more troops into Iraq. The Gavel has highlights of what has happened since that time: 590 U.S. soldiers have died and 3,575 have been wounded in Iraq since January 10, 2007. [icasualties.org, 1/10/07-7/9/07] At least 13,463 civilians and members of the Iraqi Security Forces have died since January 2007, according to media reports. [icasualties.org] According to an internal military assessment, the U.S. military’s plan to secure Baghdad against a rising insurgency is falling far short of its goal. Fewer than one-third of Baghdad’s neighborhoods are under the control of U.S. and Iraqi forces. [New York Times, 6/4/07] No progress has been made on the political benchmarks the Iraqi government was supposed to have met already. Oil sharing legislation, the reversal of deBaathification, new election laws, scheduling of provincial elections, amending the constitution and efforts to disband the militias are all languishing either in parliament or in negotiations among the three parties. [Washington Post, 7/8/07] UPDATE: The Washington Post reminds us that the administration “initially envisioned a troop increase lasting six to eight months,” but is now anticipating “keeping the extra troops in place until next spring and then beginning to pull them back, one brigade at a time.” http://thinkprogress.org/
and didnt people also agree to give it until sept and then re-evaluate any progress? So why all the recent rants about needing to withdrawl now? Both sides are crossing their respective lines. Both sides are playing politics, with this, which in my opinion really hurts the ability of the military to do its job effectively and only sends a poor message to potential attackers. whats especially odd is that there seems to be slight progress, yet people are too busy ranting, or just too stubborn, to acknowledge it.
times up! CONDOLEEZZA RICE: So it’s not as if there is a date, at six months we’ll know and then we have to do something dramatic. [Time Magazine, 1/12/07] CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I think we ought to give him and the president the benefit of the doubt, give them six months and see if it can be controlled. [Fox News, 1/12/07] BILL O’REILLY: We can’t force these people to stop killing each other. They’re either going to do it or they’re not, but now they know. Now they know. They’ve got six months and that’s it. [The O’Reilly Factor, 1/24/07]
link please? The president said in January that the surge was designed to give the Iraqi government a cushion so that they could reach benchmarks laid out by the administration. The interim report coming out this week will show that NONE of the political benchmarks have been met. It is time to take Jr's toys away from him.
I don't think there is any real progress, and certainly there hasn't been anything that shows that if we keep with it, Iraq will be fixed. The call to withdraw has happened since Bush's strategy became evident that he won't hold Iraq accountable for its own security, and he intends to keep pursuing his failed policy.
More things that make you go hummmmm -- from Andrew Sullivan (boy, talk about someone who's done a 180 on jr and the war) Petraeus, Coopted By GOP Propaganda If I were eager to maintain a semblance of military independence from the agenda of extremist, Republican partisans, I wouldn't go on the Hugh Hewitt show, would you? And yet Petraeus has done just that. I think such a decision to cater to one party's propaganda outlet renders Petraeus' military independence moot. I'll wait for the transcript. But Petraeus is either willing to be used by the Republican propaganda machine or he is part of the Republican propaganda machine. I'm beginning to suspect the latter. The only thing worse than a deeply politicized and partisan war is a deeply politicized and partisan commander. But we now know whose side Petraeus seems to be on: Cheney's. Expect spin, not truth, in September. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/
