31 January 2008
Bush announced in his address that 20,000 troops would be coming home but made no mention of further withdrawals. When he leaves office there will be slightly more military in Iraq than a year ago. I think that we are stuck in Iraq because of the must “win” mentality of the two top military leaders, David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff. While Petraeus’s mission is to win the war, Casey must also think about the health of the whole Army due to a large, sustained presence in Iraq. In my opinion, this war is not going to be won, especially without help from the Iraqi government stopping the fighting among the different religious sects and driving the insurgents out of Iraq.
Pentagon, senior officers are struggling to balance the demands of the Iraq war and the need to recruit, train and retain a growing ground force. The most important thing to them is that they succeed in Iraq. How do they measure that success? The generals say that they are guided by conditions on the ground and do not want to lose gains that the surge has made. I find it hard to find success when our military are are being killed daily, five here and five there are still too many young people dying for the “win” mentality of the Pentagon and military.
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