The Surge

“This strategy has succeeded, and we are winning in Iraq.”

— Senator John McCain, September 26th, 2008

The Surge certainly appears to have reduced overall violence and death in Iraq this past year.  I am grateful for the reduction in violence.

But is it the Surge, or is it the forced segregation of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites and the exodus and displacement of over 2 million Iraqis to other countries that is the real reason?  The eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq will tell.

My bet is that Iraq will fall into a very bloody civil war no matter when we withdraw.  I pray I’m wrong.

Faulty Intelligence

My pacifist sensibilities have been challenged ever since the Bush Administration and 9/11 crossed paths.  Today brought an article by the Senate Intelligence committee regarding the misuse of intelligence by the Bush Administration to justify the Iraq War, something that the media has reported for some time now.  That the majority of the committee members are from one party, you can be sure that the minority party would claim bias.

The report shows an administration that “led the nation to war on false premises,” said the committee’s Democratic Chairman, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia. Several Republicans on the committee protested its findings as a “partisan exercise.”

The Republican members of the committee insisted that the report demonstrated that Bush administration statements were backed by intelligence and “it was the intelligence that was faulty,” a statement which to me tries to deflect the Administration’s accountability for its resulting actions.

Faulty intelligence?  Wouldn’t we also call that stupidity?  I wrote some time ago that pre-war planning for an Iraq invasion began shortly after President Bush took office, prior to 9/11, perhaps because “Saddam tried to kill my daddy“.  I still find this to be one of the more legitimate reasons for rushing headlong to war without regard to getting it right or wrong.  It’s the one truth that President Bush has spoken that stands up to the subsequent evidence.

This Administration had intelligence that was wrong about weapons of mass destruction, wrong about ties between Saddam Hussein and terrorists, wrong about the Iraqis greeting the American troops with open arms, wrong about the invasion being cheap and easy, wrong about the $50 to 60 billion cost for the war, and wrong about bringing the shining beacon of Democracy to the Middle East.

So am I wrong to think less of this Administration than all the other Administrations I’ve lived through?

I think not.