Sunday, January 30, 2005
The New Plan is Clear
The plan is finally firming up. What the Bush Administration wants is a malleable government in Iraq, permanent military bases, and control of Iraqi oil. The proof (there’s been plenty of it before) is shown in how the administration is now allowing the U.S. military to voice sentiments such as this:
The insurgency in Iraq will last at least a decade and American troops alone will not be able to defeat it, a senior US military officer in Baghdad has predicted.
Speaking on the eve of Iraq's first free election for 51 years, the officer conceded: "Iraqis are the ones who will have to defeat the insurgency, not multi-national forces.
"It is not necessarily a growing insurgency but it is a resilient one," he told The Telegraph. "We're looking at a long-term insurgency, probably at a lower level of violence than now. Historically, you look at a decade – and this is no different."
They go even further:
The cautiously optimistic assessment has led to the Pentagon drawing up "best case" plans to cut US troop numbers in Iraq by half over the next 18 months as part of a wide review of the American military, The Telegraph has learned.
It is hoped that a new strategy for training Iraqi troops – in which thousands of US military advisers would be attached to local units as "mentors" - will lead to dramatic improvements in security.
President George W Bush is insistent that America will not "cut and run", but the administration is keen to have an exit strategy ready before the US mid-term elections in late 2006 - as long as the "mentoring" strategy works.
"The administration does not want to go into the mid-term elections where they are now," said Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and director of the Lexington Institute defence think-tank. Generals and Pentagon civilian planners were working to cut numbers from about 120,000 - though there are 155,000 covering the elections - to 60,000."
So, the original grand plan of creating the first-rules free capitalist society on earth, where greed is the only law, has been modified to—-diminish U.S. casualties (bad publicity), mold the new Iraqi government (shadow government), have permanent military bases (planes and tanks are power in the middle-east), dominate and control oil resources (SUV owners vote), and win in the 2006 mid-term elections. Nothing cynical here, eh?
The insurgency in Iraq will last at least a decade and American troops alone will not be able to defeat it, a senior US military officer in Baghdad has predicted.
Speaking on the eve of Iraq's first free election for 51 years, the officer conceded: "Iraqis are the ones who will have to defeat the insurgency, not multi-national forces.
"It is not necessarily a growing insurgency but it is a resilient one," he told The Telegraph. "We're looking at a long-term insurgency, probably at a lower level of violence than now. Historically, you look at a decade – and this is no different."
They go even further:
The cautiously optimistic assessment has led to the Pentagon drawing up "best case" plans to cut US troop numbers in Iraq by half over the next 18 months as part of a wide review of the American military, The Telegraph has learned.
It is hoped that a new strategy for training Iraqi troops – in which thousands of US military advisers would be attached to local units as "mentors" - will lead to dramatic improvements in security.
President George W Bush is insistent that America will not "cut and run", but the administration is keen to have an exit strategy ready before the US mid-term elections in late 2006 - as long as the "mentoring" strategy works.
"The administration does not want to go into the mid-term elections where they are now," said Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and director of the Lexington Institute defence think-tank. Generals and Pentagon civilian planners were working to cut numbers from about 120,000 - though there are 155,000 covering the elections - to 60,000."
So, the original grand plan of creating the first-rules free capitalist society on earth, where greed is the only law, has been modified to—-diminish U.S. casualties (bad publicity), mold the new Iraqi government (shadow government), have permanent military bases (planes and tanks are power in the middle-east), dominate and control oil resources (SUV owners vote), and win in the 2006 mid-term elections. Nothing cynical here, eh?
