Even Oliver North is against Iraq 'surge'

[thedrifter]

Even Oliver North is against Iraq 'surge'
George Tsirimokos
January 13, 2007

Virginia is home to three gallant, patriotic men with much in common. They are all three ex-Marines. They are all three highly decorated Vietnam veterans. They all sought at one time or another to be our junior senator. One lost his bid, another won his, and the third both won and lost. Our state can be proud of all three, and grateful for their service to our country.

I refer, of course, to Chuck Robb, Jim Webb and Oliver North. Strange bedfellows, nicht wahr? One may challenge any suggestion that the similarities I cited can withstand the drastically divergent political paths they have trodden since Vietnam. Before Wednesday night, I would agree, they had nothing in common. Now, it appears, George Bush has given them common cause.

Despite all the many senior military officers, congressional leaders and senior statesmen who strongly urged that more troops not be sent to Iraq, and in the face of American public opinion which does not support escalation of our involvement, Bush has decreed he will send more young Americans there. One can only pray that we, Republicans and Democrats alike, we, in our millions, we, the vast majority, are wrong, and that George W. Bush is right.

I am certain that our three Virginian ex-Marine Vietnam heroes would join me in hoping they, too, were mistaken and Bush is correct. Are you surprised at this point that I say all three were mistaken? Of course, we know Webb's position: He was against the war from the start. Robb has signed his name to a document that advises against troop increases. The Iraq Study Group Report states clearly "sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation."

But Oliver North? He of Fox News? In agreement with Robb and Webb? Oh yes, even he indeed. On Jan. 5, his essay "More Targets," on Townhall.com, takes issue with both Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. John McCain who promoted and encouraged sending more troops to Iraq.

North writes, "Not one of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen or Marines I interviewed told me that they wanted more U.S. boots on the ground. In fact, nearly all expressed just the opposite: 'We don't need more American troops, we need more Iraqi troops,' was a common refrain. They are right."

He makes two additional points: 1) A gradual escalation "sounds eerily like Lyndon Johnson's plan to save Vietnam in the mid 1960s," which, of course, didn't work, and 2) more American troops will be counterproductive in that they will restrain the motivation for the Iraqis to take on the fight themselves. North ends his piece thus, "Sending more U.S. combat troops is simply sending more targets."

It is unlikely that Shakespearean volumes grace the presidential bookshelves, and even less probable that they should rest on his nearby nightstand to offer relief, solace and fleeting escape from his cares and burdens.

If they did, I doubt not that this loud sigh would be heard throughout the presidential manse: Et tu, Oliver?

Tsirimokos, a Newport News resident, is retired from the Air Force and is an educator and a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. Send e-mail to gxt@cox.net.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

President Bush Gets Tough

by Oliver North
Posted Jan 12, 2007

So he didn't take my advice. Despite recommendations to the contrary in this column last week, President Bush announced Wednesday night that he's "committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq." That's the headline. But there's a lot more to the story. It's rife with risk -- and great opportunity.

First, the good news: The most important statement of the speech was an accurate description of the present situation. Said Bush: "The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time." The president went on to acknowledge that "only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people," and that "failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." He's dead right on all counts.

His new strategy for using U.S. forces in Baghdad follows a model now being effectively employed in Al Anbar Province. There, as we reported last month from Ramadi for FOX News, Sunni police officers, Shia Army troops and U.S. military personnel have been building police stations and driving Al Qaeda terrorists out of the provincial capital one neighborhood at a time. The administration's "New Way Forward" also concedes the need for the Maliki government to apply the rule of law equally, the necessity for provincial elections and recognition that local leaders -- like Sheikh Abdel Sattar -- are crucial to rallying the minority Sunni population in defending Iraq from foreign intervention.

Bush promised more "embedded" advisers to accelerate training Iraqi police and Army units, less onerous "restrictions" on U.S. troops and a desperately needed emphasis on Provincial Reconstruction Teams to improve economic resuscitation and new laws ensuring equitable distribution of Iraq's vast oil wealth. And though the masters of the mainstream media and our professional punditry generally ignored the point, instead of coddling Iran and Syria, as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, the president is choosing to confront them, promising to "destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

In a clear signal to Iraq's neighbors who have been reading U.S. public opinion polls and listening to anti-war activists like Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the commander in chief announced the dispatch of "an additional carrier strike group to the region," and promised our allies -- read Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia -- additional Patriot ballistic missile defense systems. And in a straightforward appeal to Congress to relieve the very real stress on our weary military, Bush urged an increase in "the size of the active Army and Marine Corps so that America has the armed forces we need for the 21st century."

If all of these changes, not just more U.S. troops in Iraq, materialize as Bush described them on Wednesday evening, they could well help to ensure "the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life." Unfortunately, many of the ingredients for success are not in his hands. And therein are the great risks in his "New Way Forward."

There is no assurance that Congress will actually authorize or fund essential increases in our Army and Marine Corps. While Bush called for "talented American civilians" to deploy overseas to "build democratic institutions," he did not place the rest of the U.S. government on a war footing. Even now, the only Americans fighting this war are soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines.

Though he called on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states to recognize how threatened they are by an American defeat in Iraq, there is no indication that these governments are willing to accept reality. Dispatching Condoleezza Rice to the region may help, but only if our "diplomats" refrain from tying success in Iraq to resolving "the Arab-Israeli dispute." Instead of sending our Secretary of State to the Mid-East, it might have been more fruitful for her to visit some of our new NATO allies with an appeal for more troops, and ordering most of the State Department to serve in Iraq.

But the greatest vulnerabilities to Bush's strategy reside in Baghdad and Washington. By endorsing "Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November," Bush has defined a timeline and created political expectations here at home that the Maliki administration may be unwilling or unable to fulfill.

Though I have documented the bravery of Iraqi police and soldiers defending their own streets from terrorists, their courage has not been matched by elected officials in Baghdad. If Maliki fails to deliver on promises to crack down on the militias, equitably distribute oil wealth, reform his ministries, pay his soldiers and police and "create new jobs" in the next 10 months, the plan will collapse -- no matter how many U.S. troops we send to Iraq. At that point the new leaders in Congress will likely launch an effort -- as they did in 1974 with Vietnam -- to cut off funding, and thereby ensure disaster.

Finally, Bush noted that the days ahead "will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve." That's undoubtedly true. Hopefully, the "author of liberty" to whom he appealed will grant at least patience and resolve to those in Congress who have forgotten the words to that great old hymn.

Ellie