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'Surge' Strategy
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jan 06, 2007 01:23pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Monday, January 8, 2007 07:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By Michael Hastings, Michael Hirsh and Richard Wolffe
Newsweek
Jan. 8, 2007 - He was caught just like a rat." Those were the simple, happy words of Ray Odierno three years ago, after units of his Fourth Infantry Division cornered Saddam Hussein in Tikrit. The hulking general went on to declare that the capture was a "major operational and psychological defeat" for the insurgents, who had been "brought to their knees." It was a heady moment, but as it turned out that's all it was—a moment. On Dec. 14, 2006, three years and a day after Saddam was hauled out of his hole, Lt. Gen. Odierno returned to take day-to-day command of Coalition forces in Iraq. His mood since then has been far more sober. "You now have different groups ... trying to vie for power within Iraq," Odierno told NEWSWEEK in an interview last week from his headquarters at Camp Victory near Baghdad. "That's what makes this extremely more complex than this has been in the past. It's not simply Sunni insurgents or Al Qaeda that we're fighting anymore—fighting is the wrong term—we're trying to influence [Iraqis] to operate within the confines of the government."
The words sound odd coming from a traditional Army warrior known for his kick-in-the-door tactics. But Odierno's transition from certainty to complexity—and from fighting to "influencing"—mirrors the journey made by the U.S. military as a whole. After weeks of intensive discussions, President George W. Bush is expected to announce his new Iraq strategy as early as next week. Most of the debate has centered on whether to "surge" 20,000 or more U.S. troops into the Baghdad area in an effort to succeed, at long last, in securing the Iraqi capital. The question is whether those forces are the right tool for the job at hand—can any number of U.S. troops stop what has become a Sunni-Shiite civil war?—not to mention whether they're even available. |
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