Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Cato & the surge

As discussion of "the surge" gets ratcheted up in Washington, I can't help but read more about the situation in Iraq. And as I was clicking around on the internet today, I found this particularly troubling statement...

The Sunni-led insurgency against U.S. forces is now merely one component of an increasingly chaotic situation. The upsurge in sectarian violence is an even larger problem, and it has undeniably embroiled the country in a civil war.(by Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute)
I haven't listened to all of the discussion today (Senators Biden, Hagel, Lieberman, McCain, Brownback, Levin et al), but I'm not yet convinced that the surge is going to turn the situation around. My guess is that to turn the situation around, we'd probably need several hundred thousand more troops.

Tim White

1 comment:

adb said...

What is needed us to speed up trainign of the Iraqi military and police, somethign the Amdinistration has now admitted has been lagging. 21,000 troops arent going to make any real difference. Fact is they need to train the Iraqi's. make them responsible and leave iraq by years end.

This war in Iraq has been one of the biggest foreign policy and military bludners in history thanks to the Bush administration, who by his bumbling behavior has set the GOP back for years to come as well as the country.