The "surge" is all anyone wants to talk about. Should we surge the troop levels in Iraq? According to most rumors, President Bush is favoring a surge of 30-40,000 troops*.
Not so fast.
The Joint Cheifs Of Staff have grown a collective pair and demanded a mission statement prior to any more troop commitments. This is about three years too late but anyway...
Here's my suggestion for a mission statement. Tactical withdrawal to Kirkuk and the Kurdish north. Utilize special ops embeds in the Baghdad to assist with security. Get the hell out by early 2008.
I suspect instead the mission statement we will receive will be some flavor of securing Baghdad. Which leads me to an image I cannot get of my head. Desperate people boarding helicopters on the roof of an American embassy.
*Can someone in the military tell me just where the hell we are going to get three more divisions?
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
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4 comments:
Leaving large numbers of U.S. Forces in the north is probably non-sustainable since they would be landlocked and require everything to be flown in from Kuwait or Europe. You cannot sustain vehicle and weapon system bases strictly on aviation support. That is one of the reasons that the size of the NATO Forces in Afghanistan is so small.
A fair point Anon, however, we already have airbases in the north for resupply. By the way how do you think we are resupplied now in Baghdad? Also, we wouldn't be there forever. This is the first stage of a tactical withdrawal. The first stage is always redeploy to a secure area. Its the most stable region.
I believe that most of the U.S. Forces are supplied by convoy out of Kuwait. The U.S. is using the ports in Kuwait and is conducting logsitics operations out of Camp Arifjan. If the US moves into the north and abandons the south, then there will be no more convoys. Heavy Equipment cannot be sustained using airlift only and the size of the force would have to be significantly smaller.
"the force would have to be significantly smaller"
Exactly
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