Troop "surge" looks like a trap

And oh boy, a big budget increase too


Scrooge makes one prediction for 2007, ``...it's going to require difficult choices and additional sacrifices...'' as he strikes a classic Bush pose -- the one he gives when he tells the American people the bad news that they will have to pay even more in lives and treasure for his failed policies.

Some Democrats are walking straight into a trap. The incoming leader of the new Democratic Senate majority, Harry Reid of Nevada, told George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that he would support a ``surge'' of additional troops to Iraq.

Reid said, ``If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we’ll go along with that.''

Reid may have backed off a little on Monday, writing in the Huffington Post, ``Frankly, I don't believe that more troops is the answer for Iraq. It's a civil war and America should not be policing a Sunni-Shia conflict. In addition, we don't have the additional forces to put in there.''

But the trap may already have been sprung. Only the usual suspects amongst the Democrats are stepping up to demand rapid withdrawal, while key ones signal that they might go along with the surge.

With the opposition thus muted, this is how it could go from here. The surge gains momentum. Bush promotes it as some sort of solution to get the US back to ``winning.'' If the additional deployments begin to happen in a few months and the news from Baghdad gets a little better (unlikely), then the troop levels will have to stay to keep up the momentum. If everything gets worse, despite the new deployments (likely), Bush will insist the additional numbers will have to stay ``because the enemy is merciless and violent'' and these ``extremists and radicals'' can't be shown a weak America that ``grows weary and leaves.''

It is irrelevant whether or not the surge policy succeeds, or more likely, fails miserably. Bush has decided that a ``merciless and violent'' response is the only medicine, whatever is the situation.

There is great concern that the military is breaking under the weight of the Iraq adventure. For example, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Dan Christman, who was head of the strategy, plans and policies department during the first Gulf War, and is now senior vice president with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, gave CNN's Wolf Blitzer dose of reality on this topic last Sunday.

CHRISTMAN: ...the consequence of sending them has been often overlooked, and that is, what happens to the Army back in the states? An Army that in terms of the redeployment is really badly broken. And so, what you've got is a professional military that I think almost to a senior officer has said please don't do this. But a political inclination to do just the opposite. And I think that clash between military and civilian cultures is looming to be a very, very great divide.

So, the president, apparently realizing that the military is inadequate for the mission he wants to escalate, now announces that part of his new strategy will be an embrace of the Democratic notion that the size of the military should be increased. Bush said, ``I'm inclined to believe that we need to increase in the permanent size of both the United States Army and the United States Marines.''

Along with that proposal is a new, enormous price tag, ``99.7 billion dollars.'' Draw your own conclusions about why they stopped just shy of $100 billion. Oh, and that would put the number for the off-the-ledger war budget at $170 billion in the current year.

Somehow I get the picture that the ``surge'' concept is mainly a sales tool for the budget. But the cost will be a lot more than money. The true cost will be paid through death and destruction for thousands of Iraqis, not to mention the American troops and their families who will suffer even more maiming, dying, and pain.

Update: This post was clarified and expanded on 12/21.