Pentagon Review Sees Three Options in Iraq

[ECH1969]

The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials.

Insiders have dubbed the options "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home." The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said. snip.

"Go Big," the first option, originally contemplated a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq to try to break the cycle of sectarian and insurgent violence. A classic counterinsurgency campaign, though, would require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police. That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military and not enough effective Iraqi forces, said sources who have been informally briefed on the review.

"Go Home," the third option, calls for a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. It was rejected by the Pentagon group as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown and bloody civil war. The group has devised a hybrid plan that combines part of the first option with the second one -- "Go Long" -- and calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence in favor of a long-term expansion of the training and advisory efforts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111901249.html

[babylonsister]

1. GO HOME. There's already an ongoing civil war. Sheesh! nt

[IndianaGreen]

4. Go home, and stay home!

No more military adventures!

[brokensymmetry]

6. Now there's an idea!

Saves lives...improves our stature in the world...saves money.

I suppose that means the rethuglicans would never support it.

[theophilus]

15. Absolutely! But remember we live in the United States of

Amnesia. I have been saying that the people who got us into this need to be punished. They shouldn't just be able to shrug and say that the Democrats lost the war. There should also be systemic changes in our government so that this kind of Vietnamexque quagmire will not EVER be recreated. The global climate problems we are facing should encourage us to turn those swords into ploughshares right now and work together as a planet. Of course, if we don't, then we'll be nuking places to get a drink of water, I guess. No More Military Adventurism! For sure!

[arewenotdemo]

27. you must have missed the memo

We could have won the Vietnam War.

But sadly, we just didn't persevere.

:sarcasm:

[saigon68]

24. Yes get the Fuck out ASAP

[shain from kane]

25. Had enough of Babylon, sister?

I'm the one that asked you about Steely Dan.

[HaggardsMethDealer]

2. Cute way to frame the debate.

"Go Big!"....like it's a football game and you are cheering the quarterback on to make a last ditch heroic play!

Someone needs to make a billboard with a huge truck crashing into a wall and bodies flying out of it with the words "GO BIG!"...

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. wow

i could have given you those options in 5 minutes...for free. We needing some high falootin' panel of experts for that?

[Zenlitened]

19. Yeah, really. Money well-spent, huh?

:eyes:

[Tight_rope]

21. Great minds think alike!

[Tight_rope]

22. Great minds think alike!

[Warpy]

5. There are only two realistic options.

First, announce an orderly withdrawal, north to south, then DO it.

Second, pretend victory is just around the corner until the various factions unite against a common enemy and throw us out after our military has been decimated.

Leave or get thrown out. Those are the only two options.

[babylonsister]

7. Amen, Warpy. Winning is not an option and never has been with

these clowns in office. I hope their ineptitude is exposed one of these old days. Dimson feels he'll be dead before that happens; I think not.

[krispos42]

8. Lose now, lose later, or lose badly even later

And each day we wait we lose three more American troops.

[buddysmellgood]

9. So it's stay the course, but ramp up the death.

[keopeli]

10. This is just propaganda to corner the US public into thinking they have agreed to a LONG war. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

26. Exactly! As General Odom says, "Cut and Run" is the only viable option

Published on Sunday, November 19, 2006 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)

'Cut and Run' Must be First Step in Iraq

by William E. Odom

The United States upset the regional balance in the Mideast when it invaded Iraq. Restoring it requires bold initiatives, but "cutting and running" must precede them all. Only a withdrawal of all U.S. troops - within six months and with no preconditions - can break the paralysis that enfeebles our diplomacy. And the greatest obstacles to cutting and running are the psychological inhibitions of our leaders and the public.

Our leaders do not act because their reputations are at stake. The public does not force them to act because it is blinded by the president's conjured set of illusions: that we are reducing terrorism by fighting in Iraq, creating democracy there, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, making Israel more secure, not allowing our fallen soldiers to have died in vain, and others.

But reality no longer can be avoided. It is beyond U.S. power to prevent sectarian violence in Iraq, the growing influence of Iran throughout the region, the probable spread of Sunni-Shiite strife to neighboring Arab states, the eventual rise to power of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr or some other anti-American leader in Baghdad, and the spread of instability beyond Iraq.

These realities get worse every day that our forces remain in Iraq. They can't be wished away by clever diplomacy or by leaving our forces in Iraq for several more years.

The administration could recognize that a rapid withdrawal is the only way to overcome our strategic paralysis, although that appears unlikely. Congress could force a stock-taking. Failing this, the public, sooner or later, will see through all of the White House's double talk and compel a radical policy change. The price for delay, however, will be more lives lost in vain.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1119-24.htm

[radfringe]

11. "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home." - but there are 2 other options

4. The Cheney Option "Go F**k yourself"

5. Invade Iran

[SKKY]

12. This is the best those "Think Tanks" can come up with?

Go Big - Basically "The Powell Doctrine" that would have worked early, but it's now way late for that.

Go Home - We all know that is not going to happen.

Go Long - What happened to all those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops we had "at the ready to defend
democracy"?? Bush said it over and over again, but now we find out it's not true? What else
did he say was happening that isn't true?

Either way, I think it's funny how all three plans conjure up, at least in my mind, thoughts of the
"Hail Mary" pass- a last minute, last ditch effort to pull something out of nothing that almost never, ever
works.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[shain from kane]

14. Peace with dishonor/Light at the end of the tunnel/Vietnamization. Heard

it all before, nothing new under the sun.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

16. My favorite: "Don't Go."

Morons.

[shain from kane]

18. Here be Dragons.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. The red tulip says "Horatio."

:shrug:

[bigtree]

17. Escalation

"The group was likely to recommend a combination of a small short-term increase of U.S. troops."


for what purpose?

*Small*, *short-term* increase of 20,000 soldiers in an occupation Bush's advisors have already told him can't be won militarily.


"That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military."



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[Tight_rope]

20. And it took these dumbfuckers how long to come up with something I knew

before the war even started. Good lawd.:spank: