FLASHBACK: One Year Ago, Gen. Casey Told Bush ‘Less Is Better,’ Pushed Reducing Troops In Iraq

[Sapphire Blue]

FLASHBACK: One Year Ago, Gen. Casey Told Bush ‘Less Is Better,’ Pushed Reducing Troops In Iraq

Today, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that top American commanders — including Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. — have “decided to recommend a ’surge’ of fresh American combat forces” in Iraq.

But exactly one year ago, Casey rejected a troop increase in Iraq and recommended to President Bush that the number of U.S. forces should actually drop:

As I’ve said before this is not a conventional war, and in this type of war that we’re fighting, more is not necessarily better. In fact, in Iraq, less coalition at this point in time, is better. Less is better because it doesn’t feed the notion of occupation, it doesn’t work the culture of dependency, it doesn’t lengthen the time for Iraqi forces to be self-reliant, and it doesn’t expose coalition forces to risk when there are Iraqi forces who are capable of standing up and doing it.

Casey has not explained the reason for his sudden turnaround and how an increase in troops in 2007 won’t now “feed the notion of occupation” or increase “the culture of dependency.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff are unanimously opposed to Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and many military officials believe that Bush has tried to bribe them into supporting his escalation plan by offering a tradeoff of increasing the size of the military.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/23/casey-iraq-troops/

[madrchsod]

1. "what a difference a day makes........"

well a year makes.