Promotions All Around

CENTCOM goes to Petraeus, and Odierno gets bumped up:

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President George W. Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Gates also announced that Bush will nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad.

Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus would replace Navy Adm. William Fallon, who abruptly stepped down in March after a magazine reported that he was at odds with Mr. Bush over Iran policy. Fallon said the report, while not true, had become a distraction.

Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, currently commander of the Army's 3rd Corps based in the U.S., finished in February a 15-month tour as the top deputy to Petraeus in Baghdad.

I'm speculating, but Petraeus has already won confirmation because of how he testified earlier this month before skeptical Democrats. We already know that the surge has failed, Iraq is back onto the fast track for another round of civil war, the Mahdi Army is waiting to see what happens and the Bush Administration has been embarrased in previous attempts to fill certain positions.

But ask yourself this--is Odierno the right man for the job? Is CENTCOM going to start focusing more on Afghanistan than it has been able to?

By the way, what the hell happened to "The War Czar?" Shouldn't the name of General Lute have come up during the shuffle of personalities? Did that question take you aback? You know, General Douglas Lute? Remember him?

“I think it’s important to the people of Iraq,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the president’s coordinator for Iraq issues. “It signals a commitment of both their government and the United States to an enduring relationship based on mutual interests.

“The basic message here should be clear: Iraq is increasingly able to stand on its own,” General Lute said. “That’s very good news, but it won’t have to stand alone.”

Sound dated? That's because it's from November, 2007. Since then, Lute hasn't been in the New York Times at all, according to their news archive of officials.

So much for "promotions," right?

Now Even Surgier!!!

These guys just don’t get it…

Americans. Want. This. War. Over.

Our military is over extended and facing a decades-long restoration and rebuilding phase. Our Army is being both abused and neglected. And the top-brass is doing the opposite of what needs to be done.

The so-called “surge” of troops is a sustained escalation, pure and simple, a Hail Mary pass made into triple coverage. We have been told that we can just deal, because it will last another year. Five years of fighting an urban guerrilla war.

The Pentagon announced yesterday that 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades will begin deploying to Iraq in August as replacements, making it possible to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year.

U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.

"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.

"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," he said in an interview in Baghdad last week. "Are we making progress? If we're not making any progress, we need to change our strategy. If we're making progress, then we need to make a decision on whether we continue to surge."

While informing us that the troop buildup will proceed apace, and just get used to the daily deaths in double digits, damnit…

While telling us to suck it up, they also tell us it most likely ain’t gonna work…

Commanders said that even with the ongoing increase in Iraq of tens of thousands of American troops, violence could increase in coming months, and some indicators in Baghdad suggest that is already happening.

Partial data on attacks gathered from five U.S. brigades operating in Baghdad showed that total attacks since the new strategy began in February were either steady or increasing. In some cases, certain kinds of attacks dipped as the U.S. troop increase began, only to begin rising again in recent weeks. Overall, "the number of attacks has stayed relatively constant" in Baghdad, said one U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by name.

The U.S. military commands that oversee Baghdad and Iraq as a whole have so far failed to meet requests to release current statistics on attack trends, with some U.S. officers voicing concern that the information would be skewed by critics to argue that the strategy is not working.

People – Petraeus said it himself – the solution is going to be political – not military.

I realize that admitting to being the wrongest group of mother fuckers in history makes the moronic militaristic mental midgets at the AEI reluctant to suck it up and admit that they have been 180º from correct on every single thing. Yes, admitting to a degree of wrongness that is tantamount to treason is an unpalatable idea – but it is not going to taste better in six months or six years. how about instead of we suck it up and give them "two more Friedmans" - they suck it up and we call this whole thing off?

Does anyone else feel like they are in the War Room with General Ripper?

Congress needs to stand firm and take the steps available to them to end this fiasco now.

The steps I refer to include impeachment of both executives and at least one cabinet member.