Disagreeable
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You said you'd leave it up to the Generals. Well, here's what some are saying. So do you now support them or George W. Bush?
Excerpts; link below; my emphasis.
"These generals who will recommend to the president when to begin withdrawing troops have begun to acknowledge what war critics have been saying for months - that the insurgency can be defeated only by Iraqis who resolve their problems through a credible government. And in some important ways, U.S. troops are not helping with that."
""What we heard from the generals was an outbreak of candor that I don't think the administration was happy about," said professor Juan Cole, a noted expert on Arab issues at the University of Michigan and author of a widely quoted Web log on the Iraq war (juancole.com).
"But in listening to these guys, it's clear that everybody is now searching for an exit strategy that is not a huge disaster," he said. "Smaller forces, more special ops, that kind of thing. Some way to start talking about how to get the numbers down."
"President Bush has been repeating his promise to succeed in Iraq. But over the past year, the administration has changed its definition of success - from defeating the terrorists to handing off the counterinsurgency to newly trained Iraqi forces."
"The prolonged conflict has left the Army, now doing most of the ground fighting, unable to meet recruitment goals and has forced it to pull troops from countries such as South Korea for service in Iraq."
http://www.centralohio.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/BE/20051014/NEWS01/510140314/1002&template=BE
Excerpts; link below; my emphasis.
"These generals who will recommend to the president when to begin withdrawing troops have begun to acknowledge what war critics have been saying for months - that the insurgency can be defeated only by Iraqis who resolve their problems through a credible government. And in some important ways, U.S. troops are not helping with that."
""What we heard from the generals was an outbreak of candor that I don't think the administration was happy about," said professor Juan Cole, a noted expert on Arab issues at the University of Michigan and author of a widely quoted Web log on the Iraq war (juancole.com).
"But in listening to these guys, it's clear that everybody is now searching for an exit strategy that is not a huge disaster," he said. "Smaller forces, more special ops, that kind of thing. Some way to start talking about how to get the numbers down."
"President Bush has been repeating his promise to succeed in Iraq. But over the past year, the administration has changed its definition of success - from defeating the terrorists to handing off the counterinsurgency to newly trained Iraqi forces."
"The prolonged conflict has left the Army, now doing most of the ground fighting, unable to meet recruitment goals and has forced it to pull troops from countries such as South Korea for service in Iraq."
http://www.centralohio.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/BE/20051014/NEWS01/510140314/1002&template=BE
