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9/11 See other 9/11 Articles Title: Surprise: Surge just another cynical con job « previous | Talking Points Memo Home | next » (April 28, 2007 -- 08:55 AM EDT) Don't be fooled by the subdued tone and subtle nuance of David Sanger's front page article in this morning's New York Times on the "New Way Forward" in Iraq. It is a milestone in the Bush Administration's public spin of the war, marking the first official acknowledgment that the surge and all the attendant fuss were nothing more than an elaborate stop-gap intended to buy time so that the colossal failure of the President's foreign policy can be pawned off on the next president: The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials. In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year. If you've been a regular reader of TPM, you know this is nothing new. We've been saying it in one form or another since late last year, when it became clear that Bush would reject the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group in favor of a policy that can charitably be called more of the same. Here is Josh, for example, writing in January: [T]he most appropriate name for what the president is planning is neither 'surge' nor even 'escalation' but rather 'punt' -- a strategically meaningless increase in troops meant to allow the president to avoid dealing with the failure of his policy and lay the ground work for getting the next president to take the blame for his epochal screw-up. For all of 2007, Administration defenders--an ever-dwindling number--have loudly and repeatedly called for opponents of the surge to give the so-called new strategy a chance. Even Republicans who have long supported the President began hedging their bets when the surge was announced. Fine, they said, we'll give you one last shot--but this is it. Minority Leader John Boehner told CNN on January 24 that we would know whether the surge was working in 60-90 days. Hmmm, in other words, we would know by now. But the Administration has employed several sleights of hand (no surprise there) which are designed to allow it to buy more time. The biggest charade has been the deployment schedule, which has phased in the "surge" over a period of five months. The full contingent of troops won't be on the streets of Baghdad until May. So the surge is really more of a ripple. The deployment schedule is largely a product of an overextended military. The only way, short of a draft, to increase the number of troops on the ground is to juggle the schedule through a combination of extended and accelerated deployments so that units' time in Iraq overlap. But the Administration will argue, come May, that the new strategy is only then fully implementational. We will be told that we have to give the new strategy a chance to work once all of its components are in place. The period from January to May when we thought we were watching the surge for signs of success was merely prelude, we will be told. Folks like Boehner will be asked about the deadlines they publicly imposed for success and will explain, with barely concealed impatience, that the clock shouldn't begin running until all the troops are in place. So instead of 60-90 days from January, we should measure from May, which buys them at least until August. Well, September actually. That is when the Pentagon is scheduled to do a "comprehensive review" of the surge for signs of success. In order to make sure there are sufficient "signs of success" by September to justify pressing ahead, the Administration is leaning on Prime Minister Maliki, upon whose fragile shoulders our entire mission in Iraq now rests, to produce "outputs": Mr. Bush was careful when he announced his new strategy in January to avoid public estimates of how quickly Mr. Maliki might take steps toward political reconciliation. Even now, White House officials are being careful not to describe with any precision the mix of benchmarks they expect Mr. Maliki to deliver. By the time Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus complete a comprehensive assessment of progress in September, three months after the troop increase has been fully in place, American officials are hoping that some of the pieces of crucial legislation will have passed. But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates found himself pressing Mr. Maliki last week to keep Parliament from taking a two-month summer break. If lawmakers remain in Baghdad, said one senior American official who did not want to be identified because he was discussing internal White House deliberations, “we’ll have some outputs then.” He added, “That’s different from having outcomes,” drawing a distinction between a sign of activity and a sign of success, which could take considerably longer. Bush is seeking "outputs" as a means of ensuring eventual "outcomes" that will, he hopes, in the end, lead to "signs of success." It's not exactly Churchillian: We will fight for every output and we will never surrender! In the meantime, Bush will be content with any "sign of activity." And as we've seen before from Bush, in the morbid spectacle he made of Terri Schiavo, any sign of activity, no matter how remote, justifies not pulling the plug. The somber, measured tone of Sanger's piece in the The Times, without a hint of irony in it, conveys that we are all supposed to just play along with what everyone--from congressional Republicans to Petraeus to the poor grunts on the streets of Baghdad--knows to be a huge charade. TPM Reader MD gamed out the Administration's strategy way back in December: It hit me the other day that what the surge is going to accomplish for Bush and Cheney is to take them through these next two years. By the time they can claim to have the extra troops in Baghdad it's gonna be May or June. They'll be there a few months till everyone has to admit that it isn't working . . . then it will be the end of 2007 and the argument will be about whether we should remove some of the surge troops. That will take a few months, at least, and we'll be in the throes of a presidential election. Bush won't want to do anything too "political" at that point, of course, so he'll happily leave it to the new prez to make shitcakes out of shit. And Bush and Cheney will spin it for all it's worth for the rest of their lives... We're right on schedule. -- David Kurtz
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#3. To: Mekons4 (#0)
That will take a few months, at least, and we'll be in the throes of a presidential election. Bush won't want to do anything too "political" at that point, of course, so he'll happily leave it to the new prez to make shitcakes out of shit. And Bush and Cheney will spin it for all it's worth for the rest of their lives... We have so much to look forward to.
#4. To: robin (#3)
Isn't it nice of the Dictatortot to keep us busy for the next year or so? It really is getting to be neck-snapping time. They're using this war strictly for political purposes. Their financial backers expect to dominate Iraqi oil, at least indirectly, so we can't leave under his watch or no library for Meester Boosh. Or any fat book contracts or board seats or any of the other goodies he's been promised. I loathe these scumsuckers.
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