Long-time VFR view of war confirmed by military expert

According to Anthony Cordesman speaking today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, not only are our forces not breaking the back of the insurgency, but they are not attempting to break the back of the insurgency. All that our forces are doing is trying to limit the insurgency, through “sweeps,” for example, that do not destroy the enemy as a fighting force but send him moving elsewhere. The idea is to keep a lid on the situation until the Iraqis security forces become more capable, in perhaps a year. This echoes the facts that emerged in the weeks preceding the January election, when it turned out that our assault on Fallujah was neither defeating the insurgency nor aimed at defeating the insurgency (as pro-war spinmeisters such as Ralph Peters had claimed), but merely at quieting the insurgency sufficiently for the elections to take place. Yet Vice President Cheney, echoed by Karl Zinsmeister and platoons of other Kool-Aid drinkers, insists the insurgency is in its “last throes.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 24, 2005 09:20 PM | Send