To Surge or Not to Surge

Sunni Arab politicians ended a yearlong boycott of the Iraqi Parliament. This is a major breakthrough for reconciliation in Iraq. Despite the huge significance of this event, it occurred with little notice.

The boycott was a reaction of the Sunnis to the sentiment of their leadership that the government was not addressing the violence of Shiite militias. A solution was implemented when the Iraqi government launched a military operation against the Shiite Mahdi Army in the wake of the vast military successes of the U.S. Troop Surge. While the government offensive met with some initial setbacks in the city of Basra, the operation ultimately turned out to be a decisive victory.

So despite the findings of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), military operations like the Surge and recent operations against the Mahdi Army have led to serious political gains in addition to security. A report by the ISG that was released in December of 2006 stated the following, which was widely accepted as conventional wisdom at the time:

“Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation.”

Back in January of 2007 current presidential candidate Barack Obama went even farther than the report and insisted that sending additional troops to Iraq would actually increase sectarian violence. Obama refused to acknowledge the Surge’s success, even as the evidence was piling up. Powerline has an excellent post that tracks the history of Obama’s stubborn adherence to his disinformation agenda:

Obama said, on January 10, 2007, on MSNBC:

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

On January 14, 2007, on Face the Nation, he said:

“We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality - we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.”

(What kind of experts was he talking to?)

On March 19, 2007, on the Larry King show, he said:

“[E]ven those who are supporting - but here’s the thing, Larry - even those who support the escalation have acknowledged that 20,000, 30,000, even 40,000 more troops placed temporarily in places like Baghdad are not going to make a long-term difference.”

On May 25, 2007, in a speech to the Coalition Of Black Trade Unionists Convention, Obama said:

“And what I know is that what our troops deserve is not just rhetoric, they deserve a new plan. Governor Romney and Senator McCain clearly believe that the course that we’re on in Iraq is working, I do not.”

On July 18, 2007, on the Today show, he said:

“My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.”

On November 11, 2007, two months after General David Petraeus told Congress that the surge was working, Obama doubled down, saying that the administration’s new strategy was making the situation in Iraq worse:

“Finally, in 2006-2007, we started to see that, even after an election, George Bush continued to want to pursue a course that didn’t withdraw troops from Iraq but actually doubled them and initiated a surge and at that stage I said very clearly, not only have we not seen improvements, but we’re actually worsening, potentially, a situation there.”

…If we had listened to Barack Obama, all U.S. combat forces would have left Iraq in a phased withdrawal that would have began on May 1, 2007. So the Surge would have been crippled before it fully got off the ground on June 15, 2007.

When Obama introduced a failed piece of legislation entitled, “The Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007”, his office had already declared the Surge a failure before it even began.

“The Obama plan offers a responsible yet effective alternative to the President’s failed policy of escalation.”

It brings to mind the ear screeching protests of the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, who stated; “I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week.” Reid’s premature declaration came almost two months before Surge operations would fully get under way.

A vital component in any decision making process is to compute your findings based on reliable data. By declaring the Surge a failure before it officially began, Harry Reid and Barack Obama showed an eagerness to rush to a hasty judgment based on either on a critical lack of analytical skills or political expediency.

While we should give them some benefit of the doubt that they could be honest morons instead of deceitful politicians, I just can’t see these people reaching such high places without the ability to think analytically on such a basic level. The facts reveal that it is much more likely that they just view the Iraq conflict through the narrow prism of political gain.

How can we believe someone who lies so effortlessly as Barack Obama does? Take a look at the quotes from Powerline above. There is a long paper trail that documents Obama’s continual claims that the Surge would fail to reduce violence and actually make it worse. Then read his more recent statement from January of 2008 in which Obama whitewashed his previous stance;

“Now, I had no doubt, and I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence.”

Obama’s aborted visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany during his world campaign tour sheds a lot of light on the subject. When the Pentagon told Obama that he couldn’t bring his campaign staff with him while visiting the medical center, he just bowed out. Obama was only interested in using this visit as a campaign event although the Defense Department has a directive prohibiting “the use of military installations for campaign events or speeches”. What a typical politician.

Lets not forget the Democratic Party’s rough treatment of our greatest general, David Petraeus. In the circus surrounding his testimony to Congress on the progress of the Surge in September 2007, the Democratic Party issued a storm of disinformation:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated the following about General Petraeus;

“He has made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual. I have every belief that this good man will give us what he feels is the right thing to do in his report, but it’s not his report anymore. It’s Bush’s report.”

Senator Dick Durbin declared;

“By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working. Even if the figures were right, the conclusion is wrong.”

Representative Rahm Emanuel, claimed;

“Instead of a new strategy for Iraq, the Bush administration is cherry-picking the data to support their political objectives and preparing a report that will offer another defense of the president’s strategy. We don’t need a report that wins the Nobel Prize for creative statistics or the Pulitzer for fiction.”

Representative Robert Wexler grilled General Petraeus during his testimony;

“In your testimony today, you claim that the surge is working and that you need more time. With all due respect, General, among unbiased, nonpartisan experts, the consensus is stark. The surge has failed, based on most parameters… Cherry-picking statistics or selectively massaging information will not change the basic truth.”

Then there was Senator Hillary Clinton’s classic accusation against General Petraeus;

“Despite what I view as your rather extraordinary efforts in your testimony both yesterday and today, I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.

In any of the metrics that have been referenced in your many hours of testimony, any fair reading of the advantages and disadvantages accruing post-surge, in my view, end up on the downside.”

The Democratic Party has done everything it can to force a retreat and it failed. Instead of relying on defeatism, we implemented a military solution that made the difference when our intellectual elite said it wasn’t possible.



Eli Pariser, a spokesman for MoveOn.org, defended their anti-Petraeus debacle: “We stand by our ad — every major independent study and many major news organizations cast serious doubt on Petraeus’ claims”.