In talking to Robert Draper for his book “Dead Certain,” the president conceded that his goal was not to end the war or to bring U.S. troops home, but rather, to bide his time. “I’m playing for October-November,” Bush said.
For nearly five years, every defense of the administration’s war policy has been just that, “playing” for more time. When conditions on the ground would deteriorate, we were told we just needed to be patient. When political progress went backwards, it was only because Iraqis needed more time.
Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will finally start sharing their perspectives today — though they won’t offer an actual report — and the plan, apparently, is to once again ask for more time.
The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, has recommended that decisions on the contentious issue of reducing the main body of the American troops in Iraq be put off for six months, American officials said Sunday.
The irony is, the policy the White House unveiled earlier this year was supposed to eliminate these constant requests for “Friedman Units” (6-month increments). Bush announced the “surge” policy and agreed to a series of 18 benchmarks. If the policy worked, Iraqis would complete the benchmarks; if the policy failed, the benchmarks would remain unmet.
Here we are in September, and only three of the 18 benchmarks have been checked off the to-do list. And yet, lo and behold, we need another six months to evaluate a policy that already doesn’t work, and already can’t produce the expected results.
Last week, reports indicated that Petraeus would consider pulling a single brigade out of Iraq by January, if he felt conditions warranted it. Today, the NYT indicated the move could conceivably come a little sooner.
General Petraeus, whose long-awaited testimony before Congress will begin Monday, has informed President Bush that troop cuts may begin in mid-December, with the withdrawal of one of the 20 American combat brigades in Iraq, about 4,000 troops. By August, the American force in Iraq would be down to 15 combat brigades, the force level before Mr. Bush’s troop reinforcement plan.
But that’s not particularly encouraging. Even if Petraeus were willing to withdraw a brigade by mid-December — and that’s conditional on the success of a policy that hasn’t worked to date — that still means no change to the existing policy for another four months. (Like last week, the reward, in other words, for failing the benchmark test, is two-thirds of a Friedman and a new spending bill from Congress.)
For that matter, Petraeus’ conditional withdrawal proposal is still remarkably thin. He’s describing, in effect, ending the “surge” in 11 months. But at that point, we’ll still have 130,000 Americans in the middle of Iraq’s civil war. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll have run out of troops for the surge several months earlier.
Petraeus is likely to share a fairly predictable message with lawmakers this week: there’s been measurable military progress in Iraq (based on data that can’t be verified and has already been contradicted), and he needs more time to produce more results.
If you feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day this morning, you’re not alone.