WAR WHORES AT THE AEI

(That's the American Enterprise Institute, one of the major wingnut hives.) AEI just had a conference on how to win the Iraq War, attended by Liebeman and McCain. AEI's basically insane position:


It has been widely reported that the new "way forward" Bush is expected to announce next week will include a substantial surge in US forces, designed to bring stability to violence-torn parts of the country.

Such an increase might allow reconstruction aid to begin to have a real effect in Baghdad and elsewhere, improving the daily life of Iraqis and strengthening the shaky central government, according to an influential report on the subject co-authored by Frederick Kagan, a military historian at American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

"Victory in Iraq is still possible at an acceptable level of effort," says a summary of the AEI study.

(from Christian Science Monitor, January 5, 2007, Friday, Pg. 1, "If Iraq fragments, what's Plan B?", Peter Grier, Staff writer)

Proponents of one prominent surge plan agree. Drawn up under the auspices of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the plan would put four additional Army brigades into Baghdad and two additional Marine regimental combat teams into Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, in an effort to curtail Iraqi violence.

"This is not just a debate about numbers. In the first instance, this is a debate about strategy," said one author of the plan, military historian Frederick Kagan, at a Dec. 14 AEI seminar outlining it. Mr. Kagan has also met with Mr. Bush about what might be achieved by bringing more US military might to Iraq.

It has never been the primary mission of the US military in Iraq to establish security to protect the population, argued Kagan. Since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the military mission has been to train Iraqis and turn the problem over to them.

For the most part, US counterinsurgency efforts have focused on attacking adversaries. That should change, according to the AEI plan, to defense and economic support of Iraqi civilians.

"You do not focus on the enemy. You focus on the people," said another of the plan's co-authors, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, at the AEI event.

The worst fighting is occurring in mixed Sunni-Shiite Baghdad neighborhoods, according to Kagan. That is where Sunni insurgents are struggling with Shiite militias in tit-for-tat sectarian warfare.

The AEI study identifies 23 such residential districts. With an additional 20,000 troops, the US military could surge into these neighborhoods, clear them of bad guys, and then leave units behind to keep them clear while moving on to the next target.

"You put a protect force in, that lives in the neighborhood.... They use empty houses. They use government buildings, schools that are not being used," said General Keane.

In Anbar, the extra marines would not be enough to allow the US to carry out this approach. Instead, they would focus on preventing insurgents flushed from Baghdad from using Anbar as a base.

(from Christian Science Monitor,December 26, 2006, Pg. 1, "What a 'troop surge' in Iraq might accomplish," Peter Grier Staff writer)



ChicagoDyke attended and took notes, Newberry has a sanity-based analysis.