June 01, 2007
Checking In On The 'Surge'
What a difference a week makes. While last week's debate over the war funding bill had everyone talking about a possible timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals beginning as early as this fall, Washington has been abuzz this week with discussions of the long road ahead for U.S. forces in Iraq.
It's been more than a month since Gen. David Petraeus announced he would have a better idea in September of the progress being made by the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq, but it already looks as if that late-summer deadline is, at the very least, going to get pushed back.
In the past several weeks, a number of military commanders and administration officials have cautioned that U.S. casualties are likely to increase in the months ahead as the surge, which just entered its final phase this week, begins to take root. In addition to the troop surge, top military and diplomatic leaders in Iraq are working toward developing a new strategy for stabilizing the country's security and political situation.
White House press secretary Tony Snow suggested earlier this week that President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. stabilizing force in Iraq similar to the one the military has maintained in South Korea since the end of the Korean war 50 years ago. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other military commanders agreed with that assessment yesterday.
The Christian Science Monitor reported this morning that one of those commanders, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, acknowledged the struggles beefed-up U.S. forces are encountering as they pursue a more aggressive strategy, causing a natural spike in casualties. May was the year's deadliest month for U.S. forces in Iraq, and third-worst month for U.S. casualties since the start of the war.
"Right now if you asked me, I would tell you I'd probably need a little bit more time to do a true assessment," Odierno said yesterday in reference to the September deadline. In the Christian Science Monitor report, counterinsurgency expert Col. T.X. Hammes concurred, saying: "People shouldn't be looking for an answer by September."
Those warnings are not likely to sit well with an American public increasingly frustrated with the situation in Iraq. Half of respondents to a recent CBS/New York Times poll (subscription) said they did not think the influx of U.S. troops was having any impact there, and a quarter said it was making things worse. More than 60 percent said the United States should begin withdrawing troops sometime in the next year.
Should it continue, that level of public unrest over the war's progress may prompt lawmakers to force at least one of the two votes expected on the war in September, regardless of the situation on the ground.
Photo: Master Sgt. Paul D. Bishop, U.S. Marine Corps
