'All the troops in the world won’t make any difference'Click Here for excerpts of Panetta's conversation with Michael Hirsh, NEWSWEEK's Washington Web editor.Leon Panetta, a member of the Iraq Study Group, says advocates of the Bush "surge" once counseled against it.
"Most top US military officials - even members of George W. Bush's administration such as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley - did not recommend a "surge" or escalation of troops into Iraq when they were interviewed by the Iraq Study Group last fall, says group member Leon Panetta, a former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton. Instead of a surge - which the president plans to announce in a speech to the nation tomorrow - these officials recommended at the time that more US advisers be embedded in Iraqi units, Panetta says. That later led the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton to come to the same conclusion, he says. Panetta also says that the officials interviewed knew that one of the Study Group’s central recommendations—that U.S. advisory teams in Iraq be quadrupled—was largely incompatible with a ramp-up of troops. The reason? In order to increase the number of U.S. advisory teams to that degree, American combat brigades must be withdrawn so the officers in those units can be turned into advisors. That is apparently not going to happen now, at least not quickly...."
Photo: Leon Panetta, former White House Chief of Staff (US Congress via Wikipedia)
Also See:
- War Could Last Years, Commander Says:
"BAGHDAD, Jan. 7 -- The new American operational commander in Iraq said Sunday that even with the additional American troops likely to be deployed in Baghdad under President Bush's new war strategy it might take another 'two or three years' for American and Iraqi forces to gain the upper hand in the war."
- A drop into the abyss:
"Saddam jailed me but his hanging was a crime. Iraq's misery is now far worse than under his rule."
- Blood and oil:
"A new law that would give Western oil companies a massive share in the third largest reserves in the world. To the victors, the oil? That is how some experts view this unprecedented arrangement with a major Middle East oil producer that guarantees investors huge profits for the next 30 years."
- Bomb's Lasting Toll: Lost Laughter and Broken Lives:
"BAGHDAD, Jan. 6 -- If the cost of this war is measured in human lives, one block in southeast Baghdad has paid more than its share."
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