From The New York Times:
U.S. General Says Troops Need Until Spring to Succeed
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commanding 15,000 American and about 7,000 Iraqi troops on Baghdad’s southern approaches, spoke more forcefully than any American commander to date in urging that the so-called troop surge ordered by President Bush continue into the spring of 2008. That would match the deadline of March 31 set by the Pentagon, which has said that limits on American troops available for deployment will force an end to the increase by then.
"It’s going to take us through the summer and fall to deny the enemy his sanctuaries" south of Baghdad, General Lynch said at a news briefing in the Iraqi capital. "And then it’s going to take us through the first of the year and into the spring" to consolidate the gains now being made by the American offensive and to move enough Iraqi forces into the cleared areas to ensure that they remain so, he said.
No surprise here.
Together with retired General Jack Keane, Frederick Kagan - the neo-conservative originator of the splurge of blood and bucks used by the Cheney-Bush Administration as a substitute for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group last December - has always argued that the only way the escalation would work is if it ran for 18 to 24 months. March would only be 13 months, if one counts the beginning of the splurge as last February (some count it from June when the full complement of 28,500 extra troops arrived in Iraq).
But there are apparently some in the Administration - and among neo-cons like Bill Kristol - who think that the splurge will make Mister Bush a hero if only enough Republicans and moderate Democrats can be kept on board in September.
General Lynch said that he and other American commanders were worried that extremist groups under attack by the additional American forces might retaliate with a spectacular, focused attack on American troops aimed at tipping the argument in Washington in favor of withdrawal. He cited what happened in South Vietnam in January 1968, when coordinated attacks by enemy troops, including one on the American embassy in Saigon, helped push President Lyndon B. Johnson into abandoning attempts to win the war. "We’re concerned about some kind of Tet offensive that’s going to affect the debate in Washington," the general said.
The occupation, General, has sparked one very long and drawn-out "Tet" offensive.