NYT: Bush Faces A Battery Of Ugly Choices On War (Analysis)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/20policy.html?hp&ex=1161316800&en=97299fc9a33324bd&ei=5094&partner=homepage

October 20, 2006
News Analysis
Bush Faces a Battery of Ugly Choices on War

By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 —

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He can once again order a rearrangement of American forces inside the country, as he did in August, when American commanders declared that newly trained Iraqi forces would “clear and hold” neighborhoods with backup support from redeployed American forces. That strategy collapsed within a month, frequently forcing the Americans to take the lead, making them prime targets.

- snip -

Or Mr. Bush can reassess the strategy itself, perhaps listening to those advisers — including some members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the advisory commission charged with coming up with new strategies for Iraq — who say that he needs to redefine the “victory” that he again on Thursday declared was his goal.

One official providing advice to the president noted on Thursday that while Mr. Bush still insists his goal is an Iraq that “can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself,” he has already dropped most references to creating a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Middle East.

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But whatever choices he makes — probably not until after the Nov. 7 election, and perhaps not until the bipartisan group issues its report — they will be forced by a series of events, in Iraq and at home, that now seems largely out of Mr. Bush’s control, in Iraq and at home.

Every day, administration and Pentagon officials fume — privately, to avoid the ire of the White House — about frustrations with Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, for not confronting the country’s Shiite militias, meaning that there is no end to the daily cycle of attack and reprisals. Mr. Bush finds himself increasingly unable to make a convincing argument that, behind the daily toll in American lives, the Maliki government is making measurable progress, or even that the problems in Iraq are subject to a military solution.

It is a vexing quandary that military experts say they doubt that any study group — even the blue-ribbon group assembled under former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana — can cut its way through.

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[C_U_L8R]

1. hoisted by his own petard ?

oh look ... George learned a new word today.

[grytpype]

2. Wow! The pressure sure is building up on Dubya?

How much longer until he cracks?

[Gabi Hayes]

3. they PAY people for this sort of "analysis?"

funny how obvious this all was to the reality based community over four years ago, isn't it?

this sort of thing was predicted by anybody with half an honest brain

thanks a lot Sanger, Miller, etal

go take a flying leap