|
WORD COUNT
664
DECEMBER 14, 2005
BUSH ON IRAQ:
CUT-AND-WALK – by Donald Kaul
President Bush has
presented us with a plan to win the war in Iraq, and not a moment too
soon. Things were starting to look bleak.
He calls it “PLAN FOR
VICTORY” but I like to call it the Cut-and-Walk Plan. It’s a lot like
Cut-and-Run, but slower.
Speaking to a captive
audience of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, he said:
“We will increasingly
move out of Iraqi cities, reduce the number of bases from which we
operate and conduct fewer patrols and convoys.”
That’s my kind of
plan for victory. If those tactics don’t strike terror into the hearts
of Iraqi insurgents, nothing will.
He also said that we
would work harder to coach up Iraqi military forces so that they can
take charge of their own protection. He didn’t say how.
But then again,
neither did John Kerry when he proposed the same thing a year ago. (I
think he was running for president at the time, but it was hard to
tell.)
The thing that makes
it hard to train soldiers in Iraq is that they’re Iraqis. The extremists
among them are good at blowing themselves up in order to kill the enemy
but when normal, everyday Iraqis are confronted with hostile gunfire,
they have a tendency to fall down and adopt a fetal position. This makes
perfect sense to a devout civilian like myself, but it leaves a great
deal to be desired when you’re trying to be a soldier.
The president was
having none of that defeatist thinking, however.
“Many advocating an
artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops are sincere, but I
believe they’re sincerely wrong,” he said.
And in an
accompanying white paper issued by the White House, it said: “It is not
realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy, able to defeat its
enemies and peacefully reconcile generational grievances, to be in place
less than three years after Saddam was finally removed from power.”
Now they tell us.
Still, I suppose I should be content that he’s finally talking about
withdrawing troops.
He did have several
stern words for his enemies, however. (After all, he is a war
president.)
“We will never back
down,” he said, “we will never give in, and we will never accept
anything less than complete victory.”
Well, good for us,
although it does seem as though Churchill rhetoric is a bit at odds with
the rest of speech, which indicated an easing toward the door.
Then again, it could
be that like most of Mr. Bush’s speeches this one didn’t mean anything
at all; that it merely was something to placate Republicans in Congress
who are terrified at going before the voters next year with this war
hanging around their necks.
One would think that
he needs more than an empty promise to pacify the voters but who knows?
Empty promises have worked for him up to now. All things being equal,
people have a need to believe in the President of the United States,
even this one.
What the Republicans
have going for them in the coming election is that the Democrats really
don’t have a better answer to Iraq. Building up Iraqi forces until they
can provide the fig leaf we need to get out of Dodge is about the only
strategy available right now, short of the despised cut-and-run.
On the other hand, as
casualties mount and Iraq’s progress stalls, cutting and running might
begin to look good.
Retired Army General
William Odom, Ronald Reagan’s National Security Agency director, has
suggested just that.
“The invasion of
Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in
U.S. history,” he said. “In war as well as in politics and diplomacy one
has to know when to withdraw and when to attack.” All of the things that
the administration says will happen if we leave are already happening or
they’re irrelevant.”
That makes a lot of
sense. I’m still not ready to endorse Cut-and-Run, though.
Cut-and-Jog, maybe.
--
Don Kaul is a
two-time Pulitzer Prize-losing Washington correspondent who, by his own
account, is right more than he's wrong. Email:
donald.kaul2@verizon.net -- A photo of Donald Kaul is available
CLICK HERE
# # # # # #
|
