The Moose concludes that Shinseki is a prophet and Rumsefld is an incompetent.
The latest news out of the Pentagon is that troop levels are going up. From the Washington Post,
The Pentagon said yesterday that it will boost the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 150,000, the highest level since the U.S. occupation began 19 months ago.
While the DOD claims this troop increase is merely to prepare for the possible turmoil prior to the elections, there is another view,
The ferocity with which the war is being waged by both sides is escalating," said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It is not just that the number of incidents are increasing. The war looks to be changing in character."
It has been said that truth is the first casualty in war. And the hard truth is that we have never been told the truth about what is actually happening on the ground from the very beginning of the war. Prior to the war, General Shinseki argued that several hundred thousand troops would be necessary to secure Iraq. However, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz pointedly rejected Shinseki. When the war ended, Rumsfeld suggested that the initial turmoil was attributable to a few "dead enders." Then, when Senators McCain and Biden argued for more troops a few months into the occupation, Rumsfeld assured them that everything was under control. Believe me, Rummy argued, not your lying eyes.
Now, we are told, don't worry be happy - these recent troubles are a little bump in the road on the way to elections. And by the way, Iraqafication is proceeding along just swell, thank you very much. Of course, there are those "naysayers" who claim otherwise,
Retired Army Col. Ralph Hallenbeck, who worked in Iraq with the U.S. occupation authority last year, said he is worried that the move represents a setback for the basic U.S. strategy of placing a greater burden on Iraqi security forces to control the country and deal with the insurgency. "I fear that it signals a re-Americanization . . . of our strategy in Iraq," he said.
Well, at least we can take comfort in the fact that Rumsfeld is not Secretary of Education. In that Department they demand standards, accountability and results. Unlike the Department of Defense, at Education they are not satisfied by the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Leave no incompetent Secretary of Defense behind.
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