From Salon
Expert advisors to the Iraq Study Group say the U.S. military now faces a cold, hard truth: It can't muster many more combat troops for the war.
Whatever its ultimate fate, the Iraq Study Group report released Wednesday should have destroyed the spurious notion that flooding Iraq with more U.S. troops might win the war. As the report makes clear, a major influx of U.S. combat brigades into Iraq is somewhere between totally unrealistic and completely impossible.
[...]The military is running out of troops and equipment. The cold, hard facts about military readiness and a 1.4 million-strong active-duty force rule out a big increase in the size of the U.S. footprint in Iraq. "We don't have enough is the short answer," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University
Advocating a big increase in troop levels now is just political theater, Hoffman argued. "This is the beginning of the who-lost-Iraq debate," he explained. "No one wants to be a charter member of the club."
Even though the new report articulates a dark picture of U.S. readiness, some politicians, including leading Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, continue to argue that a significant increase in troops in Iraq is needed to save the country from sinking into the abyss.
I highly recommend reading the rest of this article.
New poll shows 71 percent of Americans disapprove of war policy
More Americans than ever say President Bush is doing a pitiful job with the war, and an almost equally overwhelming number of people think Iraq won’t turn out to be a stable democracy, a new poll showed Friday.
A whopping 71 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war, while only 27 percent say he’s done a good job, according to the AP-Ipsos poll.
Just nine percent of Americans believe the U.S. will end up with a clear-cut victory in Iraq, the poll indicated, while 63 percent said they don’t think the country will become a stable democracy.
The public opinion was so lousy that even Bush’s go-to issue - the economy - took a hit in the latest poll. His oversight of the economy sank to a 38 percent approval rating from last month’s 43 percent.
Some lawmakers who spent time in meetings Friday with Bush described him as being in denial and clueless about the American people’s desire to see U.S. forces return home from Iraq.
“He has yet to get the message the American people sent him on Nov. 7,” said Rep. Joe Crowley, D-New York, referring to the watershed midterm elections that ended GOP control of Congress.
Crowley, one of eight centrist Democrats who met with Bush in the Oval Office, said the President is going to “cherry-pick” certain recommendations from the Iraq Study Group’s report and ignore others.
Incoming Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said it was much of the same at an earlier meeting between Bush and the bipartisan leaders of Congress.
“The President did not endorse the Iraq Study Group at this meeting, and his statements leave me questioning whether or not he is ever going to support their conclusions,” Durbin said.
Bush will have a series of briefings next week with Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and outside experts. He is then expected to decide what steps he can take to try to reverse the deadly course that the Iraq war has taken for U.S. forces.
When Bush makes up his mind, he plans to deliver a speech to the nation before Christmas.
Meanwhile, Bush still believes in US victory
President Bush has said he is confident Americans can move beyond political differences and agree a new direction for Iraq leading to victory.
In his weekly radio address, he again praised the report by the Iraq Study Group calling for a change of strategy.
But he made clear he would take no major decisions based upon it alone.
Mr Bush said the future of the region and of the American people depended on "victory in Iraq".
"Now it is the responsibility of all of us in Washington, Republicans and Democrats alike, to come together and find greater consensus on the best way forward," he told radio listeners.
He added that, while he would consider all of the ISG's recommendations, he would await other reviews by the Pentagon, state department and National Security Council.
"I want to hear all advice as I make the decisions to chart a new course in Iraq," he said.
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