A risky throw of the dice for Bush (JIM LOBE)

[laststeamtrain]

A risky throw of the dice for Bush
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - As official Washington breaks for the two-week Christmas-New Year's hiatus, it knows that the No 1 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-defense specialists, including 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 Shi'ite 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 PowerPoint presentation - by its two main authors, AEI fellow Frederick Kagan and the former vice chief of staff of the US Army, General Jack Keane, as an alternative to the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) headed by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, it is called "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq".

The title is 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.

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL22Ak01.html

pdf of the report here:http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25292/pub_detail.asp

[LuckyTheDog]

1. Time to impeach

If the Republicans have ANY partiotism left, they will join the Democrats in impeaching Bush and Cheney. At some point, the time comes to put the country ahead of partisan interest.

[AndyTiedye]

2. 50,000 Troops From Where? It's Getting DRAFTY Around Here

[pansypoo53219]

3. georgie doesn't think so

he thinks history will vindicate him, like truman.