A War We Just Might Win

**Granite_State** · 07-30-2007

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/

O'Hanlon and Pollack on the Surge

Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack, of the Brookings Institution, fresh from an eight-day trip to Iraq, have an optimistic Op-Ed titled “A War We Just Might Win” in today’s New York Times. It raises more questions for me than it answers. Among them:

Who organized their schedule?

How much time did they spend in each place they visited (Baghdad, Ramadi, Mosul, Tal Afar)?

How many Iraqis did they speak with, and whom? Did they meet Iraqis without American officers present?

What could and couldn’t they independently confirm from their briefings by military sources? For example, how do they know that, in Mosul and Tal Afar, “the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside”?

Finally, what do they mean when they declare at the end, “There is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008”? As of a few weeks ago, O’Hanlon advocated a partition of Iraq and Pollack was talking about containing the civil war within Iraq’s borders. Neither of them had much faith that the Administration’s strategy could succeed. Have they changed their minds? If so, what’s their political strategy for sustaining the surge into 2008?

O’Hanlon and Pollack have long been critics of the war. They are serious analysts and have nothing to gain by supporting the strategy of an Administration that they say has “lost essentially all credibility.” I don’t doubt that they believe what they saw and heard and wrote, and I’m certain that some of the gains they describe are real. I would like to know more about what they didn’t see and hear. At the heart of arguments over the war there has always been the question of what’s happening “on the ground.” It’s never been harder to find out than it is now, and in my experience, no news is generally bad news. Over the past four years, Iraq has humbled a lot of people. What’s missing from the Op-Ed is a necessary humility.

I’ll try to get some answers to my questions and report back to you.

**Granite_State** · 07-30-2007

Originally Posted by Granite_State

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/

O'Hanlon and Pollack on the Surge

Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack, of the Brookings Institution, fresh from an eight-day trip to Iraq, have an optimistic Op-Ed titled “A War We Just Might Win” in today’s New York Times. It raises more questions for me than it answers. Among them:

Who organized their schedule?

How much time did they spend in each place they visited (Baghdad, Ramadi, Mosul, Tal Afar)?

How many Iraqis did they speak with, and whom? Did they meet Iraqis without American officers present?

What could and couldn’t they independently confirm from their briefings by military sources? For example, how do they know that, in Mosul and Tal Afar, “the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside”?

Finally, what do they mean when they declare at the end, “There is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008”? As of a few weeks ago, O’Hanlon advocated a partition of Iraq and Pollack was talking about containing the civil war within Iraq’s borders. Neither of them had much faith that the Administration’s strategy could succeed. Have they changed their minds? If so, what’s their political strategy for sustaining the surge into 2008?

O’Hanlon and Pollack have long been critics of the war. They are serious analysts and have nothing to gain by supporting the strategy of an Administration that they say has “lost essentially all credibility.” I don’t doubt that they believe what they saw and heard and wrote, and I’m certain that some of the gains they describe are real. I would like to know more about what they didn’t see and hear. At the heart of arguments over the war there has always been the question of what’s happening “on the ground.” It’s never been harder to find out than it is now, and in my experience, no news is generally bad news. Over the past four years, Iraq has humbled a lot of people. What’s missing from the Op-Ed is a necessary humility.

I’ll try to get some answers to my questions and report back to you.

Also, can someone tell me how to put my quotes in a blue box like everyone else does? I'm an idiot.

**SWJED** · 07-30-2007

Drag over (highlight) the text you want quoted then click on the cartoon balloon icon (far right on the toolbar).

**Rob Thornton** · 07-30-2007

What could and couldn’t they independently confirm from their briefings by military sources? For example, how do they know that, in Mosul and Tal Afar, “the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside”?

Well, although I've been out of Mosul for a few months now, the ISF were making real headway. The partnership with CF (4/1 CAV BCT in Mosul and the 2-7 CAV (IN BN)) could be a blueprint for how to turn things over. The 2-7 TF CDR understood the need to resource the IA and work CF out of a job. The IA and increasingly the IP got tired of taking it in the shorts and were going after the AIF hard. All the right things started to fall into place with efforts from both sides. 2nd and 3rd DIV IA are perhaps two of the best IA DIVs around. It should also be mentioned that 4/1 was able to build on the success of 1/25th, the 172nd, 3/2 and several iterations of MiTT & PTTs.

We are strating to understand how to do this, how to enable our partners and we have good leadership coming out of MNFI. For the Iraqis part, if the security and beginnings of stability can be exported to the South I think they can succeed.