Woodward's series on the "surge" and its real architects
This week, the Washington Post is running a series of excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book, "The War Within," which details the decision-making process leading up to the "surge" in Iraq. In yesterday's installment, Woodward detailed Bush's refusal to listen to the Joint Chiefs, the commanders on the ground in Iraq, the State Department, or the US ambassador to Iraq, all of whom almost unanimously advocated an American withdrawal. Bush's deafness toward them was predicated on his almost total lack of understanding of what was actually happening in that country, coupled with his unsurprising tendency to view the conflict in simplistic, broad strokes, reminiscent of a Hollywood war movie.
In today's installment, Woodward confirmed what has been reported extensively before: that the troop "surge" strategy was cooked up by the neo-con American Enterprise Institute, and not by anyone from the Pentagon or the Joint Chiefs. According to Woodward's research, the White House adopted the strategy and then forced it onto the military's top brass, against their near-unanimous objections. Among the few who agreed with the strategy was none other than General David Petraeus, who eventually replaced General George Casey, an opponent of the strategy.
(Anyone who believes the "surge" was the main reason that violence in Iraq later dropped needs to go read this.)
After nearly eight years of witness to the Bush calamity, no one should really be surprised that the Bush administration sought and accepted military advice, not from actual military commanders, but from the same group of radical zealots who had helped cook the books to justify the invasion in the first place.
It's disheartening, but hardly surprising.