WP,pg1: Military Experts Advise Bush Not to Reduce Troops: Share skeptical view of Iraq Study Group

[DeepModem Mom]

Experts Advise Bush Not to Reduce Troops
President Looking Beyond Study Group's Plan
By Michael A. Fletcher and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 12, 2006; Page A01


President Bush walks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney after a meeting at the State Department. (By Pablo Martinez Monsivais-Associated Press)

President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said.

The three retired generals and two academics disagreed in particular with the study group's plans to reduce the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq and to reach out for help to Iran and Syria, according to sources familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was private.

The White House gathering was part of a series of high-profile meetings Bush is holding to search for "a new way forward" amid the increasing chaos and carnage in Iraq. Earlier in the day, Bush met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other high-ranking officials at the State Department, where he was briefed on reconstruction and regional diplomatic efforts in Iraq.

The military experts met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and about a dozen aides for more than an hour. The visitors told the officials that the situation in Iraq is as dire as the study group had indicated but that alternative approaches must be considered, said one participant in the meeting. In addition, the experts agreed that the president should review his national security team, which several characterized as part of the problem....

The group disagreed on the key issue of whether to send more troops to Iraq, with retired Gen. John M. Keane arguing that several thousand additional soldiers could be used to improve security in Baghdad, and others expressing doubt about that proposal, according to sources at the meeting. But the five agreed in telling Bush that the Army and Marine Corps both need to be bigger, and also need bigger budgets....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121100508.html

[Cocoa]

1. Bush calls experts he knows will agree with him

two of the five signed a 2005 PNAC letter calling for more ground troops.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20050128.htm

Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces
January 28, 2005


Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:

The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges.

So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.

There is abundant evidence that the demands of the ongoing missions in the greater Middle East, along with our continuing defense and alliance commitments elsewhere in the world, are close to exhausting current U.S. ground forces. For example, just late last month, Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, reported that "overuse" in Iraq and Afghanistan could be leading to a "broken force." Yet after almost two years in Iraq and almost three years in Afghanistan, it should be evident that our engagement in the greater Middle East is truly, in Condoleezza Rice's term, a "generational commitment." The only way to fulfill the military aspect of this commitment is by increasing the size of the force available to our civilian leadership.

The administration has been reluctant to adapt to this new reality. We understand the dangers of continued federal deficits, and the fiscal difficulty of increasing the number of troops. But the defense of the United States is the first priority of the government. This nation can afford a robust defense posture along with a strong fiscal posture. And we can afford both the necessary number of ground troops and what is needed for transformation of the military.

In sum: We can afford the military we need. As a nation, we are spending a smaller percentage of our GDP on the military than at any time during the Cold War. We do not propose returning to a Cold War-size or shape force structure. We do insist that we act responsibly to create the military we need to fight the war on terror and fulfill our other responsibilities around the world.

The men and women of our military have performed magnificently over the last few years. We are more proud of them than we can say. But many of them would be the first to say that the armed forces are too small. And we would say that surely we should be doing more to honor the contract between America and those who serve her in war. Reserves were meant to be reserves, not regulars. Our regulars and reserves are not only proving themselves as warriors, but as humanitarians and builders of emerging democracies. Our armed forces, active and reserve, are once again proving their value to the nation. We can honor their sacrifices by giving them the manpower and the materiel they need.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution places the power and the duty to raise and support the military forces of the United States in the hands of the Congress. That is why we, the undersigned, a bipartisan group with diverse policy views, have come together to call upon you to act. You will be serving your country well if you insist on providing the military manpower we need to meet America's obligations, and to help ensure success in carrying out our foreign policy objectives in a dangerous, but also hopeful, world.


Respectfully,

Peter Beinart Jeffrey Bergner Daniel Blumenthal

Max Boot Eliot Cohen Ivo H. Daalder

Thomas Donnelly Michele Flournoy Frank F. Gaffney, Jr.

Reuel Marc Gerecht Lt. Gen. Buster C. Glosson (USAF, retired)

Bruce P. Jackson Frederick Kagan Robert Kagan

Craig Kennedy Paul Kennedy Col. Robert Killebrew (USA, retired)

William Kristol Will Marshall Clifford May

Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, retired) Daniel McKivergan

Joshua Muravchik Steven J. Nider Michael O'Hanlon

Mackubin Thomas Owens Ralph Peters Danielle Pletka

Stephen P. Rosen Major Gen. Robert H. Scales (USA, retired)

Randy Scheunemann Gary Schmitt

Walter Slocombe James B. Steinberg R. James Woolsey

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Good catch, Cocoa -- thanks! nt

[Skittles]

8. this needs to be a thread of its own

yes INDEED

[Roland99]

12. Bloodthirsty warmongers!

[rodeodance]

14. still in his bubble looks like to me.

[cyberpj]

19. Still happily afloat...

[sweetheart]

2. geez, this is really pathetic

Mr. ego boy in white house can't accept the loss of face.

I understand, he should resign out of shame, and not accept the loss of face.

In japan, he'd return to his room to find a white silk, and a tanto.

[PSPS]

3. Bush already purged the brass of anyone who wasn't a yes man.

This is no surprise.

This is like it was with Hitler, where everyone around him, including his generals, feared to say anything negative because Hitler would blow up in a fit of rage.

Yes, it's good that you did that mister persident sir!

[Lexingtonian]

5. What a joke

As if a bunch of military brass is going to tell their CinC to reduce their troops and budget under any circumstances...yeah right.

As for the ISG Report, who the f--- told Bush it was a military plan and had to be dealt with as such? It's a domestic political survival roadmap for him, with the two real options he's got left being Humiliation/Bare Survival and Disaster/Resignation. The idiot is struggling desperately to find a third way out.

[izzie]

6. Just as we knew he would go to war we know he will stay.

I think the only thing we can really hope for is C0ngress will pull the money. I would not be shocked if Bush puts in more people. I just do not think any thing will change this man. He wants a win and thinks he can get it and seems to blame it on us if he does not win. That we can do any thing with force seems to go with many in the GOP. The trouble in that history has also said to think like that is often wrong. I fear that the party in Congress next term will also be in fear of pulling the plug. I can see another election and still being in Iraq. Next Congress has even more reason to stay. They can take cover by blaming it on Bush. I am set for 2 more years of this madness.

[Skittles]

7. who doesn't smell a set-up here?

I mean, could it be any more f***ing obvious? They met for OVER AN HOUR!!!! BUSH ASKED ALL THE QUESTIONS EXCEPT ONE!!! :puke:

[Trajan]

9. "Group of military experts .."

Uh huh .... just randomly selected from the halls of the AEI ....

For every one 'military expert' supporting Georgie and Dickie there are a hundred military experts who think they are fucking nuts ....

What a giant circle jerk ....

[w4rma]

10. Sycophants 'advising' their master that their master is always right. (nt)

[Wesin04]

11. Tim Russert's War Council

In August of 2005, the War Council (Russert's term) appeared on his show to discuss Iraq and ended with the question "Where will things stand in Iraq a year from now?". Appearing were retired generals McCaffrey, Downing, Meigs and Wes Clark. Three of them replied, describing a very postive scenario, and pointedly separated their rosy picture from the one posited by the 4th general. Only Wes Clark had it on the money. Read the transcript here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9064938/. The difference in the assessments and projections to the future are stark.

Not only does Clark call it right here, but in his last book, "Waging Modern War" and in both the 2002 and 2005 HASC testimony, he gets it right. Why aren't we listening to this man?

[rodeodance]

13. .....they still believe the situation in Iraq is "winnable."...........

......White House officials emphasized that although the experts gave a bleak assessment, they still believe the situation in Iraq is "winnable."

"I appreciate the advice I got from those folks in the field," Bush said after emerging from the morning session. "And that advice is . . . an important component of putting together a new way forward in Iraq."

The carefully choreographed meetings are coming on the heels of the release last week of the Iraq Study Group's report, which pronounced the situation in Iraq "grave" and recommended fundamental shifts in how the Bush administration handles the war. To stem the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the report said, the administration should shift the focus of its military mission from direct combat to training Iraqi troops, while pressing harder for a diplomatic solution by engaging Iran and Syria -- something Bush has pointedly refused to do.

Yesterday's meetings are to be followed today by a videoconference with military commanders before Bush receives Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi at the White House. On Wednesday, Bush is scheduled to meet with his outgoing defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and another group of military experts.

[Roland99]

15. Here's my post to the WaPo comments on that article >>>>>>>>

I would like to mention that the Washington Post failed to point out that two of the dissenting members that Bush met with were signees to a *PNAC* letter from 2005 to Congress requesting an INCREASE in troop size in Iraq.

These warmongers follow not only a failed ideology but one that has proven to be one of the most costly in terms of lives, dollars, and our reputation in American history.

I long for the day when the Fourth Estate rises from the ashes of the burnt offerings to the almighty right-wing.

[DeepModem Mom]

20. An important point, Roland -- excellent! nt

[Roland99]

21. Yet one the freakin' M$M will NEVER understand!

[KansDem]

16. I hope that if ever I'm hauled into court, I get to pick my "experts"

...namely those who will judge me: the jury and judge. It would make life sooooo much more simple!

[rodeodance]

17. Re: the pic in IP--bush-cheney-rice------wish they would walk into a

DEEP bog!

[truthisfreedom]

18. That's 'cuz we're winning, don'cha know.

Winning, I tell you! Winning!