(HOST) September is no longer that far away, and commentator Bill Seamans says that efforts to soften the "Surge" deadline have begun.
(SEAMANS) President Bush – when addressing particular questions like is the "surge" working? Is the Iraqi army "standing up" yet? When will our GI’s and Marines come home? – he passes the buck on to a situation report by our top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, which is due on September 15.
President Bush has played up the significance of the Report – implying that it will set a new course for the war and that we the people should all be patient until we hear what Gen. Petraeus has to say.
Now, to confuse us even more, the Karl Rovian political illusion machine has launched a not so subtle campaign to play down the significance of the Report because it will say, in effect, that President Bush’s "surge" is not working. How do we
know? Well, the generals told us so…..To set the scene, we should recall that no active duty general officer can make a public statement without the Pentagon’s approval or he will be retired. So as we look at what the generals have been allowed to say
lately we can anticipate what the September Report will tell us.
Gen. Raymond Odierno, our number two Commander in Iraq, is asking for more time to write the report. He says – it will take at least until November to judge the "surge." Gen. Benjamin Mixon, our commander in northern Iraq, says it will take up to a year-and-a-half before he can withdraw troops from his area. Gen. Rick Lynch, the 3rd Infantry Division commander, says – it will take him until next spring or summer – to consolidate gains south of Baghdad so that the insurgents don’t return. The Pentagon, itself, two weeks ago reported what it called a "slight reduction" in the number of Iraqi troops able to "stand up" on their own – that is fewer rather than
more Iraqis capable of fighting on their own to relieve American troops. The Pentagon would not define how many Iraqi troops a "slight reduction" meant but it doesn’t sound like progress. And Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said "the
rising American death toll is the wrong measure of the effectiveness of the ‘surge’ – it’s about progress being made in the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people."
So in what appears to be a coordinated and orchestrated effort, the generals whose opinions President Bush says he is waiting for are expressing doubts that they never were permitted to before. Thus we can expect that the September 15 Report will say in effect that in order to work as Bush promised the "surge" needs more time and possibly even more troops than the 30,000 already sent to launch the "surge."
Meanwhile, as President Bush, who calls himself "The Decider", waits to decide what’s next in Iraq an average of five G.I.’s and Marines are being killed and countless others are being grievously wounded each day that we wait.
Bill Seamans is a former correspondent and bureau chief for A-B-C News in the Middle East.