Is the Government Following its Own 'Strategy for Victory in Iraq'?

ABIZAID TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS

General John P. Abizaid, the man with more stress in world than Atlas in the Old World, offered up a careful assessment of the current situation in Iraq.

Is there evidence that the Government is following its own announced Strategy for Victory? How do we get over the hump of whether more is needed before less is accepted, if we can? There are so many issues/questions to look at, I'll just confine to these two.

IS THERE A SHARP EYE ON THE CHOSEN STRATEGY AND TOOLS?

It is easy to lob criticisms from every direction imaginable at people who are trying to run with the ball, as much as we have relegated the military to do so, for this conflict, with a sort-of closed-door vision of what to do and how to do it.

Yet, we still have the basic document that is meant to be informing the public about what are the steps to getting to goal, the administrations National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.

That document calls for short-term, medium-term, and longer-term goals. We don't see any of the present status reporting broken out into those categories, even if people are thinking of it. We appear to continue, even at this late date, to be asking questions about what the administration lists as a 'short-term' goal, namely the standing up of Iraqi Security Forces.

I may have surely missed them, but I didn't see much discussion about whether long-term goals were being met in places that had more stability, like the North and the South.

THE NINA, THE PINTA, AND THE SANTA MARIA

To reach the proverbial New World, the National Strategy document breaks down three conceptual areas, with the following strategies:

Political Track: Isolate, Engage, and Build
Security Track: Clear, Hold, Build
Economic Track: Restore, Reform, Build

Elsewhere the document invokes 'expanding political participation'. In the details, one finds the assumptions on which this strategy is conditioned.

Ambassador Satterfield injects a new "three pillars" element, but this is not new to the overall position, just, perhaps, a new area of rhetorical emphasis.

NO 'STRATEGY' FOR SECTARIAN VIOLENCE?

The rise in sectarian violence isn't covered by the National Strategy document.

What appears to have happened is that the an urgent emphasis on 'reconciliation' in the Political Track, which has involved a re-work of the Bremer-era de-Ba'thification, has been legislated in conjunction with a new military emphasis on Baghdad in the Security Track, supplied by soldiers from some other effort.

The Ambassador notes the simulataneity of the equations for each track; however, he suggests that only from the safety of a secure situation can the right compromises be reached. Elsewhere, the General suggests that only faced with the need to provide for their own security will the Iraqis themselves stand-up, so that the US soldiers can stand down. Apparently, these two seemingly opposed positions are resolvable.

THE ECONOMIC TRACK

THE POLITICAL TRACK - MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS AMID 'CHAOS'

THE TROOP DEBATE

[to be continued after the show]