The wrong kind of surge

[unhappycamper]

The wrong kind of surge
Brian Whitaker
August 2, 2007 1:00 PM


The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, appeared on CNN the other night, insisting that the military surge in Iraq is working. He claimed that the plan "is in fact producing results" and, overall, detected signs of "significant progress" (a full transcript is here).

Mr Cheney may not be the most reliable judge of these matters - in 2005 he announced that the insurgency was "in its last throes" - but he has been backed up by some officially-spun figures from the Pentagon which the New York Times cheerfully headlined: US death toll in Iraq in July expected to be lowest in '07

~snip~

A group of military experts at the American Enterprise Institute, concerned that the US was on the verge of a calamitous failure in Iraq, almost singlehandedly convinced the White House to change its strategy.

They banded together at AEI headquarters in downtown Washington early last December and hammered out the surge plan during a weekend session ... Then came trips to the White House by AEI military historian Frederick Kagan, retired Army Gen John Keane and other surge proponents.

More and more officials began attending the sessions. Even Vice President Dick Cheney came. 'We took the results of our planning session immediately to people in the administration,' said AEI analyst Thomas Donnelly, a surge planner. 'It became sort of a magnet for movers and shakers in the White House.'

Donnelly said the AEI approach won out over plans from the Pentagon and US Central Command. The two Army generals then in charge of Iraq had opposed a troop increase.


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