Reuters January 10, 2007
ANALYSIS-Bush Iraq plan has many risks, no guarantees
By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's decision to send more U.S. troops to Iraq poses serious risks, including at least a short-term rise in casualty rates, and its success will depend on many factors beyond American control.
While the increase of some 21,500 soldiers and Marines will take the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to more than 153,000, the United States has had more boots on the ground in the past and still failed to stop the spiral of deadly violence.
U.S. troop levels reached a peak of 159,000 in January 2005, according to Pentagon figures.
That raises the question of whether the increase proposed by Bush will be enough to quell violence that has, in the meantime, become more intense -- a complex mix of sectarian, insurgent, Islamist militant and criminal attacks.
In particular, sectarian violence has exploded since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra last February.
"It's a different war in that respect," said John Pike, director of military information Web site GlobalSecurity.org.
Advocates of the boost pin much of their hopes on the fact that U.S. forces will now hold areas of Baghdad once they have been cleared of insurgents and militia fighters. This, they say, will be a significant change.
"The proof of the pudding is in the holding," said Tom Donnelly, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, who favors an increase in U.S. forces.
Previous operations failed because U.S. and Iraqi forces did not have enough troops to hold areas after clearing them of enemy fighters, U.S. officials have said.
Donnelly said he expected the U.S. casualty rate to rise at least initially after the new strategy is adopted but it could decline after a month to six weeks if operations succeeded.
More than 3,000 U.S. troops have died and more than 22,000 have been wounded in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Anthony Cordesman, one of Washington's most prominent military analysts, said the new strategy was probably the best Bush could present but added: "It certainly has very serious military and political risks."
CONTRAST WITH COMMANDERS
Bush's plan puts him at odds also with the views of his top Iraq commanders, who argued against an increase in U.S. troops and will leave their posts as the new plan is implemented.
It also assumes enough Iraqis are willing to abandon sectarianism and relies on Iraqi authorities supplying support they previously have not provided.
"It depends on Iraqi forces, which have proven to be very ineffective, even over the last few days in Baghdad," said Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"The other great question is -- how will the Iraqi people react?" he added.
Cordesman said Sunni Muslims saw insurgents as their protectors and Shi'ite Muslims viewed their militias in the same way. Much would depend on how ordinary people reacted to U.S. and Iraqi forces targeting both groups more aggressively.
Bush administration officials have insisted Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Iraqi government is more committed to this latest push to improve security and will provide the necessary forces and political backing.
But some analysts doubt the wisdom of relying on Maliki, whose commitment to tackling the Mehdi army militia of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has repeatedly been questioned, and say Bush's new plan is not based on sound military reasoning.
Andrew Bacevich, a retired U.S. Army colonel who is a professor of international relations at Boston University, said the number of extra troops had been determined by what the U.S. military could provide rather than what was needed.
"If you want to surge, then 21, 22,000 people... it's a trivial number of soldiers if you really want to make a difference," he said.
"This is really an act of desperation," he said. "I think the war is unwinnable and we need to begin to withdraw."
© Copyright 2007, Reuters
