Maybe there won't be too much discussion at all, because I bet most of us can predict how this is going to go, both in this thread, and in congress.

The right is going to look at all the good stuff, and say that the surge is working and we have to give it more time, regardless of what else is in the report.

The left is going to look at it and say it is time to bring the troops home.

This thread will be the same.

Nothing will get done.

The American and Iraqi people in the end will continue to get fucked one way or the other.

9/5/2007 10:33:47 PM

What a shitty attempt to be insightful.

Whats your opinion?

9/5/2007 10:39:38 PM

I just wanted to get the thread started ahead of time you worthless hack. I just stated my opinion. I might go more in depth later. I specifically didn't in my first post, because of bitches like you and everyone else that is more interested in winning the internet than just posting opinions. Fuck off if you don't have anything to add other than your inflammatory bullshit. Seriously, FUCK OFF.

9/5/2007 10:40:59 PM

perhaps we should wait til the report comes out??


just a thought though.

9/5/2007 10:44:11 PM

I don't see why we can't talk about it now. It is interesting to me for people to make predictions (however detailed) and see who is closest to what actually happens.

9/5/2007 11:00:57 PM

agreed.

I've got the open source / non-open source dilemma, so I'll keep my mouth shut, but FWIW, Petraeus literally wrote the current book on counter-insurgency.

9/5/2007 11:03:58 PM

It seems to me like some aspects of the surge are definitely working. Bombings seem to be down, etc.

Having said that, one thing that bothers me is when the administration heralds how well it is working, they ONLY refer to Anbar Province and have being doing so since about April or so. I wonder was Anbar the worst area, we poured a lot of extra troops in there, stamped out that mole, and now the insurgents are having to move to different areas where they will pop up again. Obviously, this takes time.

And all of that is for naught if the damn Iraqi government can't get in gear.

9/5/2007 11:08:34 PM

something i heard in passing on the radio the other morning is that the White House is actually in charge of releasing this report, not General Petraeus. So the final draft goes though the WH for editing before it's released. Reason being, months ago Congress demanded a status report from the White House in September. So what the WH has done is basically outsource the report writing to Patraeus (given he is the best qualified to write it anyway), but then spin it so it sounds like the report is coming directly from Patraeus to the public. Which is not true - the WH actually owns the report, Patraeus is just the first author.

anyone heard this or can verify it?

9/5/2007 11:08:56 PM

Chance, what do you think.

If it's good, does that mean:

1) things are going well and we should continue

2) we've done our job, time to start bringing the troops home

If the report is negative, does that mean:

1) things aren't going so well, we should put in the effort to make it work

2) its not working out, time to start bringing the troops home

I mean I'm sure there are people, as you've pointed out, with vested interests that will try to make self serving cases. But if the report turns out to be clearly good, or clearly bad, what course of action do you believe we should take?


My guess is it will be a mixed report, that will still give the administration room to maneuver. After all they picked the guy. I don't think he'll say things like we've failed in Iraq, rather he'll use rhetoric more like we've only come part way to our goals.

I think he’ll make suggestions for long term continued deployment, and then the administration will opt to “bring the troops home” for a part of the surge forces. So we’ll still have a lot of people over there, but they can still talk about bringing the troops home.

9/5/2007 11:13:47 PM

Quote :

"FWIW, Petraeus literally wrote the current book on counter-insurgency."

and bush's office literally wrote "general petraeus's" report to congress

9/6/2007 9:05:07 AM

If I had to guess, (and assuming the report comes directly from him and not through the censors first) it would say something like this:

The new tactics are working, albiet slowly. There's still a lot of ground to cover, not only from the goals set at the outset, but also from all the blunders and mistakes we've made along the way. Given time, people, resources and cooperation, making Iraq a stable country is doable, but it will likely involve moves that hurt the pride of the US and of other countries. It will take a long time, and require a hard decision of america. Either america will need to comit fully and 100% to making Iraq whole again, regardless of the taste of that medicine, or america needs to get the fuck out completely. Half-assing it and making decisions based on political manuevering isn't going to cut it.

Of course, I also agree that the right will look at it as a glowing report of the miracle that is the United States: Angels of Mercy™ and the left will look at it as a damning report of how badly things are going for the (Sort of) Great Satan™ and demand an immediate withdrawl.

9/6/2007 11:05:49 AM

Quote :

"I just wanted to get the thread started ahead of time you worthless hack. I just stated my opinion. I might go more in depth later. I specifically didn't in my first post, because of bitches like you and everyone else that is more interested in winning the internet than just posting opinions. Fuck off if you don't have anything to add other than your inflammatory bullshit. Seriously, FUCK OFF. "

I thought this was hillarious....overreact much?? jeez


That said..i pretty much agree with you...no matter what happens...the left is going to say "OMG BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW BUSH IS HITLER!"...and the right is going to say "SEE ITS ALL GOOD LETS ALL MOVE THERE!!"

9/6/2007 11:12:16 AM

Quote :

"the WH actually owns the report, Patraeus is just the first author. anyone heard this or can verify it?"

I can't speak to this particular report but this is generally how these types of reports go. When I was researching and writing the Human Rights Report section on Bosnia for the State Dept a few years ago, the manual guiding everything was far longer than the report itself. We also had to submit it on a number of occasions to Washington for editing and approval.

9/6/2007 11:19:04 AM

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1659375,00.html

Interesting Op-Ed from Time today.

Quote :

"Did the surge work? Yes and no. After Bush kicked a handful of other generals out or upstairs early this year, Petraeus changed tactics abruptly, threw a ring of fresh troops around most of Baghdad and crimped the flow of explosives into the city, making life there markedly better. The surge took place in a belt of outposts around the capital, where troops barricaded roads into the city, worked with local residents to flush out insurgents and spent millions creating safe zones where markets and normal life could return. Average Iraqis tell Time that Baghdad feels safer; sectarian violence in the capital has been reduced, Pentagon officials say, and many Baghdad residents want the surge to continue. That's in part what the operation's architects had in mind when they sketched it out last fall."

I thought that was an interesting opinion, and perhaps the truth. He goes on to say that the massive problem is Maliki, which we figured out a while ago.

Petraeus' report will most definitely reflect the military progress, but I'm sure the WH will censor the parts about how Maliki is being relatively useless.

9/6/2007 11:26:38 AM

The real question isn't "did the surge work?". To an extent, it most certainly has.

The question that needs to be asked is, "can we sustain the necessary troop levels to exploit our current gains in Iraq?" That is a far more relevant question and a much more troubling one.

9/6/2007 12:21:28 PM

i'd say the question is "how long can we sustain the necessary troop levels so that an Iraqi-led political solution can be installed and maintained long enough to coalesce and stand on its own"

or maybe the question is even "can an Iraqi-led political solution ever be installed and maintained long enough to coalesce and stand on its own"

unfortunately, the way it looks from here, the Iraqi government doesn't have a firm grasp on much of anything.

9/6/2007 12:30:35 PM

^ The same might be said of our government.

9/6/2007 12:52:03 PM

Due to Gates' extension of current deployments, we have full "surge" troop strength until at least Oct 2008.

My question is, what happened to those insurgents in Baghdad? Obviously we didn't kill them all. They had to go somewhere. I don't think we have enough troops to pull off this surge strategy in every major city in Iraq, so did the improvements in Baghdad make life worse in Basra or Najaf or Mosul?

9/6/2007 1:06:22 PM

None, yet.

Based on what I've heard on open-source, AQ over-extended their reach in most of Iraq and are pretty unwelcome most everywhere in the country.

9/6/2007 1:10:32 PM

That still begs the question of where they are going though. If not anywhere in Iraq, are they going back to Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or where?

9/6/2007 1:14:57 PM

1) Most indicators seem to show Anbar is better/more safe.

2) The rest of Iraq is worse/less safe.

3) No political progress has been made, and the fragile political structure that is there appears to be crumbling.



My Take:
---------
The "surge" strategy is essentially pushing on a balloon, displacing the insurgency to other areas. This to an extent was acknowledged by the advocates of the surge, who essentially stated the purpose was to provide a window of safety for political progress to be made. That progress has clearly not been made. Therefore, the surge strategy has not accomplished its stated purpose despite successful performance by the troops. This much seems clear, at least to anyone willing to acknowledge reality, but "what's next" is obviously a tougher question.

Militarily, our troop levels are insufficient to maintain a secure occupation of the entire country. The surge is not a sustainable military strategy, because you are simply displacing the violence. Without a draft (not gonna happen), troop drawdowns are inevitable.

The Malaki government appears to be collapsing, and it is less than clear what will take its place. What role or purpose will our troops serve as that happens? The last thing we need to do is continue to send troops in Iraq without a clear understanding of why they are there.

9/6/2007 1:15:18 PM

Quote :

"2) The rest of Iraq is worse/less safe."

not true

9/6/2007 1:18:15 PM

http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/003097.php

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=491370

Good news to me

[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 1:22 PM. Reason : dd]

9/6/2007 1:21:59 PM

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14198105

Quote :

"Statistics the Weapon of Choice in Surge Debate by Guy Roz Morning Edition, September 6, 2007 · As Congress prepares to hear testimony from Gen. Petraeus on the situation in Iraq, the White House and Pentagon have been pointing to several statistics that they say show progress as a result of the surge. Some military experts, however, say those numbers only tell part of the story. Sometime around February 2004, a top military official in Iraq estimated that there were about 15,000 total insurgents. About a year later, U.S. military leaders in Iraq announced that 15,000 insurgents had been killed or captured in the previous year. In private, a skeptical military adviser pointed out to commanders that the numbers didn't make sense. "If all the insurgents were killed," he asked, "why are they fighting harder than ever?" The adviser, who couldn't speak on the record, recounted the story as an example of how statistics can easily become misleading. Here's a few statistics that military officials have cited in the past few days. From Gen. Richard Sherlock: "Overall violence in Iraq has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June 2006." From Gen. Kevin Bergner: "On a national level, sectarian deaths are about half of what they where in December of 2006." And from Gen. Ray Odierno: "Total attacks are on a monthlong decline and are at their lowest levels since August of 2006." And here's how those statistic translate into political rhetoric. From South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham: "Well, the surge has worked; it's provided a level of security I haven't seen." And from President Bush: "Anbar is a huge province. It was written off as lost. It is now one of the safest places in Iraq." But other numbers tell a different story. This year, Anbar is actually the second-deadliest place for U.S. troops in Iraq. Baghdad is the deadliest. And while there's no doubt the numbers of troops killed in Anbar this year is lower than last year, troop casualties have spiked dramatically in other provinces. Twenty American service members were killed in Diyala Province last year. So far this year, 100 U.S. service members have died in Diyala. Every month this year, more American troops have been killed as compared with the same month last year. Pentagon officials argue that numbers like these are meaningless, that they don't give a sense of success. The problem, though, says former Army Col. Doug MacGregor, is that the Pentagon uses statistics selectively to bolster the case for success. "People are making claims and assertions that don't stack up when they are viewed in the context of the last four years," MacGregor says. Here's an example: The Pentagon says sectarian deaths in Iraq were sharply down in August. But the military's definition of what constitutes a sectarian murder is narrow. Last month's massive bombing in northern Iraq that killed more than 500 ethnic Yezidis made August 2007 the second-deadliest for Iraqi civilians. Yet the Pentagon doesn't consider large bombings like that one an example of sectarian violence. The result is that it can show that sectarian murders are down. "What we have right now is an illusion created by the White House, created unfortunately with the help of many people in the media," MacGregor says. "And the result is, people pick up on what is said [and] it becomes conventional wisdom." The military measures stability in Iraq by looking at total attacks daily — attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians. The Pentagon says total daily attacks are now at a one-year low. But last year was the deadliest for Iraqis since the invasion, so the comparison, says retired Army Col. Paul Hughes, is somewhat misleading. "Even with the security that's improved in the Baghdad region," Hughes says, "they are still not getting the electricity and the water that city's citizens need." Before the war, Baghdad had round-the-clock electricity. Today, more than four years since the invasion, the city averages about six hours of electricity a day. And then there's the issue of Anbar province. Both the White House and the Pentagon have attributed the changes in Anbar to the surge strategy. But several military advisers who worked in Iraq until late last year have said that is simply not true. MacGregor says that the increasing cooperation between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes in Anbar started more than 18 months ago, long before the "surge." "And they were done on the initiative of the Marines and the Navy who looked at Anbar and said, "There's gotta be a better way to do business here," he says. So is the surge working? The short answer is that no one can know for certain because statistics only tell a small part of the story. "

9/6/2007 1:31:46 PM

Another article offers a more troubling assessment:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502466.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

9/6/2007 3:10:25 PM

^ As much as a liberal as I am, I even have to look at the Washington Post now with some skepticism. They have started leaning so much further to the left than most "liberal" news outlets.

9/6/2007 3:20:05 PM

the whole "is the surge working" question is flawed, because the answer can be spun in any direction one chooses.

i think everyone can agree that political stability will not come unless theres physical security ... yet physical security doesn't guarantee political stability.

so basically, we're relying on the Sunnis, Shi'as, Kurds, Bathists, and secular iraqis to all come together under the leadership of a Shi'a government and play nice together.

i'm just real glad that Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld and all their neocon "New American Century" buddies figured this shit out while they were planning on flowery parades for our liberating troops.

9/6/2007 4:57:48 PM

Quote :

"the whole "is the surge working" question is flawed, because it can only be honestly answered in the future by historians"

9/6/2007 5:27:09 PM

You hate to bring up the conspiracy theory idea, but it's eerie as hell to me, that Bin Laden doesn't have any video or statements about the US since Oct 2004, and here, just before what many are referring to as a crossroads about the Iraq War strategy, he comes out with another statement?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/06/binladen.video.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world

9/6/2007 7:35:12 PM

He's been watching and waiting.

9/6/2007 7:50:20 PM

Quote :

"his beard, which in previous messages had been streaked with gray, was entirely dark."

he uses product, ha!

I bet he calls for world peace

9/6/2007 7:57:38 PM

Quote :

""the whole "is the surge working" question is flawed, because it can only be honestly answered in the future by historians""

This is not a particularly good policy-making concept. I'll refer you to the 80% today is better than 90% tomorrow rule.

9/6/2007 8:40:06 PM

^thats irrelevant...what i said is 100% true

9/7/2007 9:37:21 AM

^I think his point is most of us aren't comfortable with getting a bunch of soldiers maimed and killed without assessing our policy, just because it may become more obvious how bad or good the policy is down the road.

9/7/2007 9:44:59 AM

thats fine but my point is still valid

which is why all this shortsighted crap is inaccurate

9/7/2007 10:00:47 AM

Your point has no relevance to reality, though.

Using your reasoning here (and with climate change, for that matter) no leader should make any proactive policy decisions ever, because present knowledge is imperfect.

9/7/2007 11:33:03 AM

^ & ^^ exactly.

Quote :

"which is why all this shortsighted crap is inaccurate"

Yeah, um, I can't really comment on this the way I want to, so someone pick up the obvious irony here.

9/7/2007 4:53:18 PM

I don't know if the report is going to make that much of a difference in any event. Many Republicans and conservatives want US forces to remain until some type of stability or victory can be achieved or claimed and many Democrats and liberals want US forces out of Iraq sooner rather than later. I don't see this report--or any other--changing these positions by much.

9/7/2007 11:14:22 PM

Quote :

"General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. "It has not worked out as we had hoped," the general said. The acknowledgement by Petraeus that the situation in Iraq is "exceedingly complex" and that progress had been "uneven" came on the eve of his testimony to Congress on the state of the war. He offered the assessment in a letter to US forces serving in Iraq that was obtained by the Washington Post. ... "Many of us had hoped this summer would be a time of tangible political progress at the national level," Petraeus wrote. "All participants, Iraqi and coalition alike, are dissatisfied by the halting progress on major legislative initiatives," he wrote. ... He continued to emphasise there had been isolated gains in Iraq, including what he called "local reconciliation", in the isolated pockets where tribal leaders had formed alliances against al-Qaeda."

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/&articleid=318677

9/8/2007 1:56:37 PM

thats discouraging.

9/8/2007 4:55:15 PM

Anyone know what time the report is supposed to take place today? I believe NPR is going to air it live and I'd like to listen in if I can find out when it starts.

9/10/2007 10:02:46 AM

Quote :

"My question is, what happened to those insurgents in Baghdad? Obviously we didn't kill them all. They had to go somewhere. I don't think we have enough troops to pull off this surge strategy in every major city in Iraq, so did the improvements in Baghdad make life worse in Basra or Najaf or Mosul?"

Wasn't the surge theoretically supposed to be that instead of simply playing the old "wack-a-mole" game with the insurgents, the United States was going to do a more hold and expand approach? The US and Iraqi allies would secure a region (like Baghdad or Anbar), push the insurgents out, and then secure the region with American-backed Iraqi forces while the US moves on to the next province or city?

I say theoretical because there are many serious concerns about the Iraqi forces actually being able to do this (though I have more faith in the Sunni tribes in Anbar than the mixed forces and militias of Baghdad).

Someone mentioned Basra. I hear that the security there has deteriorated not because of the surge pushing insurgents there but more because the British withdrawal from there was not done clean, and as they reduced their numbers, the whole situation fell apart.

Quote :

"I don't know if the report is going to make that much of a difference in any event."

Agreed. From what I hear coming from the Democratic camp, especially Biden's recent comments, I don't expect any change from them (or the Republicans for that matter).

9/10/2007 10:13:28 AM