I think CO Macgregor's statements/arguments were only half truths at best. I can't help but think he has an agenda to undermine the current strategy in Iraq, and if he was one of the 10lb brains that suggested we go to Baghdad with 50,000 troops, because the Iraqi Army won't fight, then it sounds like he has an axe to grind, because he now knows with the benefit of hindsight he gave terribly flawed advice. It was a best case course of action only recommendation with no depth. Obviously he had "no" plan for securing a post-Saddam Iraq, so he seems to delight now in poking holes in the current strategy, which admittedly is far from perfect, but still a good approach to perhaps undue the damage done by the initial "failed" strategy, which he apparently helped shape/influence.

A troop surge is not strategic? He downplays the great awakening, without offering a better strategy. Seems a little out in left field to me.

Again I don't necessarily disagree with the underlying logic of most of his arguments, but I do disagree with his tone, and his failure to offer a better approach. Oddly enough the one answer that is not debatable was six, and you guys disagreed (lol). His tone again failed him, as he portrayed it as plunder, rather than trying to secure an important source of oil for the global economy.