The White House's urge to 'surge' troops into Iraq

As official Washington breaks for the two-week Christmas-New Year's hiatus, it knows that the number one issue it will face on its return in early January is the White House's apparent "urge to surge" as many as 50,000 new troops into Iraq for up to two years in a last-ditch effort to claim what President George W. Bush insists on calling "victory." The plan, which was presented to Bush last week in a meeting with five national defence specialists, two associates of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is designed to focus US military efforts on providing "security" for average Iraqi citizens against both the Sunni insurgency and Shia militias that have, in the report's words, made Baghdad the "center of gravity of this conflict." Drafted hastily–it currently exists only as a Power Point presentation–by its two main authors, AEI fellow Frederick Kagan and the former vice chief of staff of the US Army, Gen. Jack Keane, as an alternative to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, it is called "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq." The title apparently chosen deliberately to counter one of the ISG's core messages: that there is "no magic bullet"–least of all a military one–that can save what most analysts in Washington believe is the biggest US foreign policy debacle since at least the Vietnam War. "Alone among proposals for Iraq, the new Keane-Kagan strategy has a chance to succeed," declared this week's Weekly Standard, which, like the AEI fellows involved in the "Victory" project, was a major champion for going to war in Iraq. Indeed, the provenance of the plan–aside from Keane and two other senior retired military officers, a majority of its 17 contributors are AEI fellows–has fed suspicions that it represents one final effort by neo-conservatives to persuade the president that, by "doubling down" on his gamble on Iraq, he can still leave the table a winner and "transform" the entire Middle East. While Bush has not explicitly endorsed the concept, he noted at his year-end White House press conference on Dec. 20 that he was open to the idea. Vice President Dick Cheney's office, which is closely tied to AEI, is known to support it strongly. "According to all the talk in Washington, the 'plan' whipped up by AEI's Fred Kagan is likely to be mostly implemented by President Bush when he stops stalling about his policy in Iraq," according to Pat Lang, the former chief Middle East analyst at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, who has warned that, if implemented, it would likely lead to "Stalingrad on the Tigris." "A 'surge' of the size possible under current constraints on US forces will not turn the tide in the guerrilla war," warned Lang, who noted, along with many other experts in the past month, that the reinforcement of thousands of US troops in Baghdad since last summer had actually increased the violence there. "Those who believe still more troops will bring 'victory' are living in a dangerous dream world and need to wake up," he added, conceding, however, that it may appeal to Bush for that very reason. "He wants to redeem his 'freedom agenda,' restore momentum to his plans and in his mind this might 'clear up' Iraq so that he could move on to Iran." The current theater commanders, including the outgoing head of the US Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, and the senior officer in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, have also argued that more troops are likely to increase, rather than reduce, the violence. Abizaid, an Arab-speaker with an advanced degree in Middle East studies from Harvard University, has all but explicitly endorsed the main recommendations of the ISG, particularly its emphasis on gaining the cooperation of all of Iraq's neighbors in stabilising the country. The Joint Chiefs are also reportedly skeptical of the plan, with the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, warning Congress earlier this month that, even at the current rate of deployment–not to mention increased troops levels, let alone those recommended by the "Victory" plan–"we will break the [Army's] active component."