Word: grounde
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Based on what I've been able to learn about the situation on the ground, and based on conversations with soldiers and experts, I think a new strategy for victory supported by additional forces has a good chance of success. If others think the situation hopeless, they should make the case for withdrawal--and presumably for withdrawal sooner rather than later. They should also describe what they think would happen during, and after, our withdrawal--and why that outcome is preferable to trying for victory. The critics tend to say, "It's too late--it won't work...
...years now, George W. Bush has told Americans that he would increase the number of troops in Iraq only if the commanders on the ground asked him to do so. It was not a throwaway line: Bush said it from the very first days of the war, when he and Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld were criticized for going to war with too few troops. He said it right up until last summer, stressing at a news conference in Chicago that Iraq commander General George Casey "will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there." Seasoned military people...
...idea of sending more now. That's in part because the politicians and commanders have had trouble agreeing on what the goal of a surge would be. But it is also because they are worried that a surge would further erode the readiness of the U.S.'s already stressed ground forces. And even those who back a surge are under no illusions about what it would mean to the casualty rate. "If you put more American troops on the front line," said a White House official, "you're going to have more casualties...
...Iraqis, it conditioned that O.K. with the phrase "if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective." When it became clear to the internationalists that the Kagan-Keane surge was winning White House attention without any calls for more troops from generals on the ground, they counter-counterattacked. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former four-star, said a surge had been tried in Baghdad--and had failed last fall--and would only further delay Iraqis in taking control of their own security. Powell added, a little pointedly, that he had not heard any generals...
...9/11 pol, but a ground zero launch is too crass. Where United 93 went down, he can highlight heroism--removed from liberal New York City...