If this is true, I’m wondering why it is we didn’t hear about this before the surge actually started as part of the, you know, debate:
Smith [Gordon Smith, R-OR] said he recently spoke with Gen. David Petraeus, the new top military commander in Iraq, who told him the troop surge has only a one in four chance of succeeding.
Looking good then, looking good. I mean, one in four isn’t bad. Well, not as bad as, say, one in five so…
Heh.
And:
“If you’re really going to do a surge, you don’t do it with 20,000, you do it with 250,000,” he said, noting that Baghdad is a city of nearly 7 million people. But he said the United States cannot afford such a response; instead it has to come from the Iraqi Army.
More:
Libby Spencer at The Impolitic
Mark Kleiman at The RBC.
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