Fred Barnes wrote a must-read article for the new issue of The Weekly Standard on how Bush made the decision for The Surge. You really get a feel for the different competing ideas on winning in Iraq, some good, some very bad like the State Departments version:
In Washington, the president got little satisfaction from the interagency review of Iraq policy. Instead of a surge, the State Department favored a strategy of pulling troops out of Baghdad and allowing the Sunnis and Shia to finish their bloody struggle. When Bush heard about this idea, he rejected it out of hand. “I don’t believe you can have political reconciliation if your capital city is burning,” he said.
Typical liberal point of view. It’s their fight, just let Rome burn.
The Military itself had different views, from a greater reconciliation politically was needed first, to more civilian agencies being involved, to sticking with the same ole “train and leave” strategy that had got us no where:
The Pentagon was on Bush’s side, arguing that American troops shouldn’t be ordered to stand by while people were being massacred. But, as Bush was to hear firsthand during his visit to the Tank, the military wasn’t favorably disposed to a surge either. During the review, Joint Chiefs of Staff representatives stuck to the line that political reconciliation, not a troop buildup, was the key to reducing violence in Iraq. They also said a greater civilian effort was needed in Iraq. As for the U.S. military, the status quo in Iraq was fine.
Bush wasn’t buying that. On December 11, Bush had five military experts to the Oval Office to talk about the Iraq war. Keane, a friend of Cheney but almost unknown to Bush, made the strongest impression, arguing that “train and leave” wasn’t a strategy for winning. He laid out a case for the surge, reinforcing Bush’s strong inclination. Retired generals Wayne Downing and Barry McCaffrey opposed the surge. (McCaffrey later changed his mind.) Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Democrat, criticized the gradual retreat urged by the Baker-Hamilton Commission. And Eliot Cohen talked about civil-military aspects of the Iraq war and said Bush should talk to younger officers, not just the generals.
That afternoon, Keane and Frederick Kagan gave Cheney a full briefing, including a slide show, on their surge plan. It had been developed at AEI with help from Keane’s network of officers. Cheney didn’t need much encouraging. Bush told Cheney biographer (and WEEKLY STANDARD senior writer) Stephen F. Hayes last year that the vice president had always been a “more troops guy.” The surge neatly fit Cheney’s specifications. Keane and Kagan became a sought-after pair in Washington, a gravelly voiced general and a young professor with a plan to win in Iraq. They gave briefings to Hadley and Pentagon officials, among others.
Bush was originally scheduled to deliver a nationally televised speech on Iraq the second week in December, a day or so after the Tank session. But the president wasn’t ready. He wanted to give Gates time to visit Iraq. And a key decision–about sending troops to Anbar, home of the Sunni Awakening–was still to be made. The speech was put off until after New Year’s.
When Gates returned from Iraq just before Christmas, he brought Casey’s recommendation for a surge of one or two brigades–a mini-surge. Bush felt that wouldn’t work. He had agreed with Hadley and Crouch that Anbar was an opportunity worth seizing. He didn’t want to “piecemeal the operation” by tackling the province later. Once he’d “made the decision to cleanse Anbar and settle down Baghdad at the same time,” Bush said, it had to be five brigades.
By this time, Petraeus was a factor in the decision-making. Both Gates and Rumsfeld had recommended him. He was already a favorite of Cheney, who’d spent a day at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with Petraeus while the general was writing the new Army counterinsurgency manual. Petraeus gave a pre-publication copy of the manual to Cheney.
Though he was replacing Casey and jettisoning his strategy, the president didn’t want to embarrass him. Bush admires Casey and rejects the Lincoln analogy: that like President Lincoln he fired generals until he found one who would win the war. When I raised the analogy, Bush interrupted. “McClellan and Casey,” he said. “That’s not accurate.” Lincoln fired General George McClellan and ultimately made Ulysses Grant his top commander. According to the analogy, Petraeus is Bush’s Grant. “I wouldn’t go there,” Bush told me. He promoted Casey to Army chief of staff.
Bush may not like the comparison, but it fits perfectly. Casey wasn’t getting it done and had no new good ideas. Bush brought in Petraeus and even though some still wanted Bush to hedge his bets by announcing an increase of troops of “up to” a certain amount, he declined. Instead he announced a fixed number and was met with dismay from the Democrats and silence from most of the Republicans. The Democrats said the surge wouldn’t fix anything, we needed to cut n’ run.
But the president, as best I could tell, wasn’t looking for affirmation. He was focused solely on victory in Iraq. The surge may achieve that. And if it does, Bush’s decision to spurn public opinion and the pressure of politics and intensify the war in Iraq will surely be regarded as the greatest of his presidency.
Great Presidents make the tough choices that sometime go against popular opinion. Bush did exactly that and the result can be seen best by the utter silence about Iraq in our MSM and from the mouths of Democrats.
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Fred Barnes has lost my respect. His behind the scenes manuvers for McCain has me very put of with him and Bill Crystal.
A good accounting of how a plan came together. But, it also underscores President Bush had a better understanding of how things stood militarily than most are willing to give him credit for. Furthermore, it appears that Rumsfeld had come to a conclusion that the status quo at the time had to change. Why would he recommend Gen Petraeus for the job?
As for the equating of McClellan/Grant analogy with Casey/Petraeus, you need to remember this President doesn’t cast aspersions. During the Civil War, McClellan rarely (if ever) pressed any advantage when he had it. We do know Gen Casey reluctantly took the job. It didn’t mean he wasn’t ready, it meant he probably relied on his staff more heavily much in the same manner as Army Vice Chief of Staff would. Whether this is a correct assessment or not, that’s for another time.
Lastly, it shows this President knows how to lead. It’s a rarity in politics. If there is a true “Profile in Courage,” this is it. (I don’t expect the Kennedy clan to present President Bush with that award.)
I don’t see much evidence of Barne’s supporting McCheese jainphx.
As for the State Dept., they are constantly trying to screw up the military. Can anyone name ONE THING the State Dept. has ever done right?
It’s an even bigger hotbed of liberal idiocy than CIA.
The State Department is institutionally incapable of warfare as a solution or fighting any kind of battle outside a smoke-filled room, and will always go against it in favor of “Diplomacy” no matter how spastic and very frequently idiotic.
I served under general Casey when he commanded 1AD. He is a good officer and set the ground work for the Surge and the Sunni Awakening, even if he did not support the Surge. However, history may not be kind to him. Casey is no McClellan, but not a “Grant”. Petraeus is more like McAurther/Patton/Eisenhower/Marshall if one must make comparrisons. He is the right man, at the right place, and at the right time with a President who listens to him and supports him. For that, GEN Petraeus gets full page discount adds in the NYTs calling him “betrayus”.
I also met General Jack Keane a few years ago at Ft. Knox. He is a very intelligent, and capable officer who is well spoken and committed to America.
I also got to witness this entire thing while in Iraq in 2007. And yes, the DoS, for the most part, is a drunken POS. What I saw in Iraq was a President commited to victory, as the article states, and the left commited to America’s defeat. I saw this as every time Pelosi, Ried, Murtha, or any of their ilk slandered us, the terrorist media, Imams, AQI, and internet message boards would light up parroting leftist quotes (or the left parroting their quotes… it was difficult to tell). After the House’s “run away” vote last spring, the terrorists cried that they had won and tried to step up rocket attacks on the IZ. These terrorists ran into 1st CAV, the 82 ABN, a whole lot of Iraqi Soldiers, and very angry Sunni/Shia/Kurd Iraqi civilians who dashed the islamofascists’ view on their Tet style “victory”.
And the rest is now, slowly, coming to light with the many other successes of the Surge.
I disagree with the McClellan/Casey comparison. McClellan was fighting the Crimean War in Virginia, Casey’s strategy was at least within the context of his own generation’s experience. Casey, unlike McClellan, wasn’t losing the war in Iraq – he just wasn’t winning.
Not to take anything away from General Petreaus and his troops, I will always subscribe to the theory that the biggest factor in the surge’s success is that President Bush committed more troops after the Republicans lost the 2006 election while Democrats were demanding an immediate withdrawal.
al Sadr and al Qaeda were convinced all they had to do wait us out and we’d collapse under the weight of political pressure. Bush however proved that he was committed to Iraq and did the opposite of what everyone expected (the opposite of what either of his electoral opponents or his predecessor would have done) and all but ignored the Congressional Democrats. al Qaeda and al Sadr crumbled in the face of that commitment.