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Local News & Opinion
Ref. : Local Newsbriefs Travel
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Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable Health & Environment
06.29 Thinking about Climate 06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN 06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare 06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All 06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate 06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex 06.22 Thinking about Recoveries 06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo 06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform 06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers 06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care 06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations Media Watching
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform 06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage 06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right 06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess US Politics, Policy & Culture
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy 06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity 06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail 06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission? 06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership 06.25 America's "Bases of Empire" 06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town 06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins 06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program 06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black 06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix 06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran? 06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program? 06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory 06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed High Crimes?
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement" 07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure 06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq 06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release 06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War 06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future 06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record 06.14 Fear Rules Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America 06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control 06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney International
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean 06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New 06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise' 06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil 06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?” 06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran 06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections 06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters 06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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PURGING ALL DISSENTERS:Operation: Save Bush's LegacyIf press reports are correct—that George W. Bush will approve a troop “surge” in Iraq of 17,000 to 20,000 soldiers—the follow-up question must be whether the escalation will do anything but get more Americans and Iraqis killed while only forestalling the defeat of Bush’s war policy.
“Any other option is likely to fail,” Keane and Kagan wrote in an Op-Ed article in the Washington Post on Dec. 27, 2006. So, the more modest escalation of up to 20,000 soldiers would appear to represent what might be called “Operation: Save Bush’s Legacy,” with the goal of postponing the inevitable until 2009 when American defeat can be palmed off on a new President. Right now, Bush seems caught between his determination to stave off admission of failure and the shortage of U.S. troops available to throw into the conflict in Iraq. Just to reach a 20,000-troop increase, Bush would have to delay the scheduled departure of two Marine regiments now deployed in Anbar Province. [ See NYT, Dec. 29, 2006] The escalation to 160,000 troops, from the current 140,000, also would be hard to maintain for long, since the Pentagon has warned that existing troop levels in Iraq already are straining the U.S. military and forcing repeated tours for soldiers and Marines.
Bush appears to be orchestrating a slow-motion purge of senior military leaders who oppose the “surge” and instead favor a phased withdrawal. Yet all the signs point to Bush going in that direction. Over the past few weeks, he even appears to be orchestrating a slow-motion purge of senior military leaders who oppose the “surge” and instead favor a phased withdrawal.First, Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Nov. 8, just two days after Rumsfeld sent Bush a memo suggesting a “major adjustment” in Iraq War policy that would include “an accelerated drawdown of U.S. bases” from 55 to five by July 2007 with remaining U.S. forces only committed to Iraqi areas that request them. “Unless they [the local Iraqi governments] cooperate fully, U.S. forces would leave their province,” Rumsfeld wrote in his Nov. 6 memo. Proposing an option similar to a plan enunciated by Democratic Rep. John Murtha, Rumsfeld suggested that the commanders “withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions – cities, patrolling, etc. – and move U.S. forces to a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to be available when Iraqi security forces need assistance.” And in what could be read as an implicit criticism of Bush’s lofty rhetoric about transforming Iraq and the Middle East, Rumsfeld said the administration should “recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) – go minimalist.” [NYT, Dec. 3, 2006] Though many Americans viewed Rumsfeld as the personification of Bush’s “tough-guy” strategy in the Middle East, the Defense Secretary’s downfall may have been caused by his going wobbly on the war. Mistaken Judgment Washington insiders also may have been wrong when they interpreted Bush’s selection of former CIA Director Robert Gates as a concession to the “realists” advocating a disengagement from Iraq. It may actually have been the opposite – the replacement of a disillusioned Rumsfeld with a dutiful Gates.The “conventional wisdom” was misguided, too, when it assumed that Bush would interpret the Democratic victory on Nov. 7 as a sign to begin winding down the Iraq War. Instead, Bush signaled his disdain for anyone suggesting a troop withdrawal. In Amman, Jordan, on Nov. 30, Bush mocked the expected recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed by longtime Bush Family adviser James Baker who considered a troop drawdown combined with a revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process and direct talks with Iran and Syria as the only realistic course. But Bush declared that U.S. forces would “stay in Iraq to get the job done,” adding “this business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.” When the Iraq Study Group issued its formal report on Dec. 6, Bush gave it a cool reception and indicated it would be only one of several reports on Iraq that he would consider. Bush said he wanted Gates to undertake a review with the U.S. generals.
Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant, described Bush’s message as: “What I want to hear from you is how we’re going to win, not how we’re going to leave.” During a classified briefing at the Pentagon in December, Bush then reportedly made clear to the brass that he had no interest in finding a way out of Iraq. Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant, described Bush’s message as: “What I want to hear from you is how we’re going to win, not how we’re going to leave.”Soon, there was a drumbeat from White House allies and from neoconservative circles for a military escalation, not a gradual withdrawal. That suggestion, however, was countered by a Pentagon leak revealing that the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed an escalation because they doubted it could achieve any lasting strategic objective. Bush, who has always insisted that he listens to his generals on military matters such as troop levels, reacted to their resistance to the “surge” with a purge. The first to be pushed to the door was Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East who suddenly announced that he was accelerating his retirement which would take effect in March. Abizaid, who speaks fluent Arabic, was criticized by some in Washington for being too concerned about Arab sensibilities. Getting the bum’s rush with Abizaid will be Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq who had called the idea of a troop escalation unnecessary and possibly counterproductive. The New York Times reported that Casey would be replaced in February or March, several months ahead of schedule. “As Baghdad spun further out of control [in 2006], some of the President’s advisers now say, Mr. Bush grew concerned that General Casey, among others, had become more fixated on withdrawal than victory,” the Times reported. [NYT, Jan. 2, 2007] By ousting “surge” opponents – from Rumsfeld at the Pentagon to the top commanders in the Middle East – Bush and his neoconservative aides in Washington appear to be taking personal control of the Iraq War strategy. The President seems determined to put in place a military hierarchy that will fall in line with his edicts, rather than disagree with him. The Iran Gamble But less clear is whether Bush will stop at a 20,000-troop escalation in Iraq or whether he will “double-down” his Middle East bet further by expanding the war beyond Iraq’s borders to confront other U.S. adversaries in Syria and Iran.Along with Israeli leaders, Bush has declared that Iranian progress on a possible nuclear bomb is unacceptable. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has even called the prospect an “existential threat” to Israel. But Bush and Olmert are facing a ticking clock if they want to act before they lose one of their few remaining international allies. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has agreed to resign from his post sometime in the spring. So, with Bush purging his regional military commanders by March – and presumably replacing them with more pliable generals – the next few months could prove to be crucial for the future of the Middle East. Though Bush may yet back away from the idea of expanding the war beyond Iraq, his apparent decision to escalate U.S. troop levels there suggests that he will do whatever he can – even if it bloats the death toll – to escape the opprobrium of having committed perhaps the greatest strategic blunder by any President in U.S. history. With 3,000 American soldiers already dead along with possibly a half million or more Iraqis, Bush is determined to escalate the war in the Middle East into a pitched battle for his presidential legacy. Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.' This article is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.
Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on January 3, 2007. |
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