Get ready for it -- here it comes -- Surge, Part II

[Guest Joe S.]

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Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says

that the Joint Chiefs may consider increasing the current level of U.S.

forces in Iraq. You heard that right: Come September, we could be looking at

Surge II.

 

Here's how it could happen: In September, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador

Ryan Crocker produce their "report" to Congress. President Bush then ponders

the options. (And we know he isn't going to throw in the towel.) And then

the case is made -- and there is a certain logic to it -- that keeping

forces at the same or higher levels would help the U.S. and Iraq reach their

goals more quickly.

 

So one option then would be Surge II. These guys have guts.

 

On his Baghdad-bound aircraft yesterday, Gen. Peter Pace said that the Joint

Chiefs (the chairman, vice chairman, and the chiefs of the Army, Marine

Corps, Navy and Air Force) are developing their own assessment of the

situation in Iraq, a report that they will present to the president in

September alongside the report from Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in

Iraq.

 

Joint Chiefs deliberations are closely held. Pace said, however, that they

would look at post-September scenarios for Iraq that included a second surge

of U.S. military forces -- if that is what the president wants. Pace also

echoed the view that the first surge (which started in January) is just

beginning to bear fruit and in fact needs a boost to allow for Iraqi

political and military progress.

 

Pace characterized planning for Surge II as prudent. "That way, if we need

to plus up or come down" in response to a presidential order, he said, the

services will be prepared. The Chiefs have been doing "the kind of thinking

that we need to do and be prepared for whatever it's going to look like two

months from now," he said.

 

Ground commanders in Iraq are already lobbying to extend current surge into

2008. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said last month that the current

deployments could be extended beyond 15 months to sustain an overlap surge

with newly deploying troops in the spring if conditions on the ground

demanded it.

 

Pace's visit was his first to Iraq since the surge was completed, and he

repeatedly spoke of his concern for soldiers and their families.

 

Many soldiers are angry about the military's policy of 15-month tours,

extended from 12 amid the surge. Pace spoke of how multiple combat tours are

harming families and affecting morale in the field. The talk in the ranks

these days is of the exodus of non-commissioned officers that the Army is

beginning to experience. And there's the inability of the Army to attract

its recruit quota and the reduction in standards allowed for new recruits.

 

I've already written about my sense that the military leadership back home

is done with Iraq and are ready to move on. They have watched Congress

dither, they have watched those in the field fight valiantly, but their

fundamental view is that they are fighting with too few resources and

without a credible partner.

 

Maybe Washington and America's concern for its soldiers will win this

argument, and the decision will be made to bring them home. It would be

short-sighted, and it would be self-interested. Yet think of this delicious

possibility: One of the lessons of Iraq, the military could say, is that we

just don't have a big enough military.

 

Come to think of it, they may already be winning this argument. Hooray for

the Generals!

 

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