Onward to Iran!
The PNAC Platoon Shoots for the Failure Trifecta
by Jodi Schmidt

Nov. 25. 2004 -- BALTIMORE (apj.us) -- If you blinked, you might have missed a recent Washington Post article in which senior military commanders at the Pentagon once again state the need for more US troops in Iraq.

Now, that's not news to anyone who has been paying attention to the events of the last four years.

Despite the strong urgings of the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff and their key subordinates, former Texas governor George W. Bush and his civilian friends in the PNAC Platoon -- Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and a long litany of Neoconservatives "embedded" in the White House and Pentagon -- bought into the notion, gleefully promoted by Ahmed Chalabi, that US troops would have no trouble taking and holding Iraq with a force a fraction of the size of the one that was used just over a decade ago to invade Iraq during Desert Storm.

Toppling Saddam was indeed relatively easy -- but securing the country was -- and is -- not.

It certainly didn't help that the entire occupation, directed in large part by the PNAC armchair civilian warriors, has been fraught with blunders from the very beginning. The two biggest, aside from the actual idea of invading Iraq, were Paul Bremer's decision to disband the Iraqi army (thereby angering a lot of well-trained soldiers who then decided to join the resistance), and the civilian SecDef Rumsfeld's continued insistence, despite the continued pleas of the Pentagon brass (the ones he hasn't fired for backtalking him, that is) that he can fight this war "on the cheap" with minimal troops for the task.

The truth is that we can't do that and also maintain a presence in such hot spots as the Koreas -- not unless we have a draft. Even the backdoor draft Bush is currently running is not enough.

Here are a few examples of what I mean by "backdoor draft":

Bush is pulling 100 M1A1 tanks from the DMZ on the North Korean border and sending them to Iraq.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center will soon have a rehab center specializing in getting amputees ready for combat once again "on the cheap" with minimal troops for the task.

Let's not forget that the Individual Ready Reserve and OpFor units were called up a long time ago. (By the way: Thank you, Senator Durbin, for trying to keep military reservists from having to do more than tour in Iraq. I'm glad someone in Congress cares about the fact that these people are fighting and dying, and won't have jobs to come home to, all so Cheney's Halliburton can have some really profitable quarters.)

Look at our taking -- for the third time -- of the city of Falluja. For the most recent retaking, the Pentagon was forced to pull troops from elsewhere in Iraq, and the result was that there weren't enough troops to keep Mosul and Sadr City under control. (Wanna taxi ride from the airport to downtown Baghdad? Be prepared to shell out $5200 for a one-way trip -- you ride in the taxi while an armored "gun car" escorts you.)

And so, seeing how we don't have nearly enough troops to enforce order, the neocons, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that we need to cut them.

Yes, you heard me. CUT them. Totally.

A growing number of national security specialists who supported
the toppling of Saddam Hussein are moving to a position
unthinkable even a few months ago: that the large US military
presence is impeding stability as much as contributing to it and
that the United States should begin major reductions in troops
beginning early next year.

Their assessments, expressed in reports, think tank meetings,
and interviews, run counter to the Bush administration's
insistence that the troops will remain indefinitely to establish
security. But some contend that the growing support for an
earlier pullout could alter the administration's thinking.

Those arguing for immediate troop reductions include key
Pentagon advisers, prominent neoconservatives, and some of the
fiercest supporters of the Iraq invasion among Washington's
policy elite.

"Key Pentagon advisers", "prominent neoconservatives", and "fiercest supporters."

Translation: The PNAC Platoon.

They want to pull out after the January elections -- assuming, that is, that there will be January elections.

I wonder why?

There's only reason that I can think of for their wanting to pull out of Iraq.

It has to do with the little stink-bomb Colin Powell left last week as one of his final lies as Secretary of State -- his last public humilation, on behalf of Mr. Bush and his cadre.

It has to do with PNAC's slogan of the past three years: "Men go to Baghdad. Real men go to Teheran."

Buckle in, ladies and gentlemen. The PNAC Platoon, not satisfied with failing to get Osama in Tora Bora and wasting hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq, is now going onward into Iran, to complete their trifecta of failure.

It's too bad they're not the ones that'll be doing the fighting.