On Tuesday evening (June 5th) I attended the Baltimore Council of Foreign Affairs presentation by Frederick Kagan, the guy who came up with the bright idea of the surge and who sold it to Bush-Cheney to avoid following the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. The presentation lasted one and half hours, about equally divided between his speech and Q & A.
Although I detest his views, I will say that he made a convincing presentation. I was most impressed by the fact that he spoke for 40 minutes, spewing out one alleged fact and one statistic after another, without a prepared speech or even notes, maintaining direct eye contact the entire time with his audience.
I'm giving a summary of his speech and the Q & A with little or no comment and I am going to avoid the "he said this, he said that", so don't assume I agree with what follows (and don't troll me).
Kagan began by saying he can't predict if the surge will succeed or fail, because war is unpredictable. It would be just as wrong for him to say that the surge will succeed, as it is for us war opponents to say the surge will fail.
He has visited Iraq twice in the past two months and is very optimistic. Things are completely different on the ground than what you read in the papers or see on TV.
The U.S. had one military policy from the end of 2003 until January 10, 2007, when Bush announced the surge. The old strategy was for Americans to hang out in safe bases except for occasional operations where we convoyed through neighborhoods without stopping to talk to the locals and then drove directly back to base. The military was trying to keep casualties down, and trying to train an Iraqi army. We were not trying to protect Iraqis. This was a failure, Kagan claims he said this many times over the 3 years. If we were bringing in more troops to do more of the same, he would be leading the opposition to the surge.
The surge is only partly about more soldiers. It's mainly about getting out and fighting the enemy, and leaving the secure bases to man outposts in the neighborhoods to interact and build trust with the locals.
We are facing multiple enemies, but the main enemy is Al Queda. The locals have befriended our soldiers in their outposts and are informing on Al Queda hide outs, and we are going in and killing the terrorists with the help of these civilians. We have achieved great success since January. Baghdad has traffic jams for the first time since the invasion, and an amusement park has opened. The Sunnis hate the Al Queda terrorists because Al Queda wants to impose Islamic law. Violence he says is way way down, he claims violence has dropped 50 percent from Janaury 10 to May 7th.
He said the last of the 6 new brigades will be deployed by the end of June and at that point the surge will be fully operational.
He admits Dialah province has deteriorated but we'll secure that once we secure Baghdad by early 2008. The big news is the "Anbar awakening" where the tribal sheiks have turned on Al Queda and the Sunnis are now fighting Al Queda instead of us. 12,000 Sunnis have joined the Army. Things are also going super in the other provinces.
The Shia militias are not a military problem because they are too fragmented. The Badr Corps is sitting out the war, but their political movement is still strong.
The Iraqi army is doing great now. We didn't build them barracks and they wouldn't sleep in the fields, so the Iraqi soldiers deserted in mass. But now we've built barracks and the soldiers are reporting for duty, 60 to 75% are showing up for duty. They will be rotating 6 months of duty, 6 months home. But 2 Iraqi units refused to go home and insisted on continuing to serve and fight and give up their six month leave.
The police are not doing so well and there is much corruption and some double agents.
He hopes the parliament doesn't schedule provincial elections because the extremists will win.
We can't give up. The kids in the streets love us. If we pull out, all the world will know the U.S. can't be trusted to keep its promises. He says he's never been hesitant to criticize Bush, but things are going great now and we shouldn't quit.
Questions and Answers:
Q: You've admitted we've made mistakes, why should we trust you that the surge is the right thing to do?
A: If violence isn't down by early 2008, I'll rethink and look for plan B.
Q: You didn't say a word about our dead soldiers, do you care about the lives that have been lost?
A: Everybody knows about the dead soldiers, I'm trying to show the positive. I taught at West Point for 10 years and all my ex-students have been over there, one was wounded. They are my friends. But if we pull out things will go to hell there real fast and we'll have to go back into Iraq again, this time with greater casualties.
Q: What about the Iraqi standard of living?
A: The standard of living is rapidly expanding. Iraqis are doing better economically than ever before.
Q: In September, General Paetreus will say the surge is going great and the Republican congressmen will tell Bush to declare victory and get out, or he will say it's failing and the Republicans will tell him to get out. So what's the point of dragging this out?
A: Either way Iraq fails and the Republicans will lose the 2008 elections. The only hope for the Republican Party is military victory by the election, and I am showing the way to win the war.
Q: Will we have permanent bases?
A: I don't know, let's win the war and then worry about it. Then he mentioned the South Korea model, and predicted that a grateful Iraqi people will be begging us to stay to protect them from their mean neighbors.
Q: The questioner read an article Kagan wrote in Aug 2005 in the LA Times - he said in August '05 that things were going swell.
A: I was too optimistic, I thought Bush would follow my plan but he didn't. Now that Bush is doing what I say, things should go great.
Q: You've been wrong for 4 years, why should we believe you now?
A: No I haven't.
Q: What assistance are Syria and Iran supplying to the insurgents?
A: 40 to 60 suicide bombers cross the border from Syria every month. Most land at Damascas airport and head for the border. Most suicide bombers are outsiders, Iraqis wouldn't do this to each other. Iran wants chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan and supports Hezballah. It's OK for us to talk to Iran and Syria but we have nothing to trade so the talks can't go anywhere.
And that was the end.