NationStates Jolt Archive

Link (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/general-barry-r-mccaffrey-report.htm)

It appears that the situation in Iraq is improving. And this is coming from a man who once said "Iraq is abject misery".

The point is that the surge may well show some improvement in terms of removing the violence from a certain area - but that then there is nothing to fill that space.

There is no Iraqi government to take over and provide a stable legal, economic or political environment. The surge is only working because Sunni tribes are supporting it, and precisely those same tribes will set up quasi-independent local areas.

The surge can only provide military progress, but without political progress that is worthless. It's a band-aid on a neck wound.

It's a band-aid on a neck wound.

Well, at this point the choice is between a band-aid and a tourniquet. Frankly the only cure at this point is a time machine.

Link (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/general-barry-r-mccaffrey-report.htm)

It appears that the situation in Iraq is improving. And this is coming from a man who once said .

The point that stood out most clearly to me, is the admission that the Iraq conflict as part of a 'War on Terror' is abject fraud.

I also was amused by the admission that insurgent forces are fleeing some areas, and 'reconstituting' in other areas. Pretending that means the Surge is 'working', is like claiming I'm eating my peas, when I hide them under my napkin.

The purpose of the surge, as laid out in January of this year (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html), was to give the government time to do it's work - limited time.

What does your report say about the government?

d. CENTRAL GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WORK:

There is no functional central Iraqi Government. Incompetence, corruption, factional paranoia, and political gridlock have paralyzed the state. The constitution promotes bureaucratic stagnation and factional strife. The budgetary process cannot provide responsive financial support to the military and the police—nor local government for health, education, governance, reconstruction, and transportation.

Mr. Maliki has no political power base and commands no violent militias who have direct allegiance to him personally—making him a non-player in the Iraqi political struggle for dominance in the post-US withdrawal period which looms in front of the Iraqi people.

However, there is growing evidence of the successful re-constitution of local and provincial government. Elections for provincial government are vitally important to creating any possible form of functioning Iraqi state.

The surge worked in keeping the violence down. However it has ultimately failed in that, at this late point, no amount of time will make the government work. If sufficient forces had been on the ground to properly occupy Iraq in the first six months, this plan may have worked. The surge was closing the barn door after the horse had escaped and the barn has burnt down.