In any event, this strategy failed and actually increased violence across the country in 2006. So the surge is basically the opposite. Instead of our troops sitting on large bases and patrolling from there, they would live on very small posts called “COP’s”, amongst the general population. A small number of troops are responsible for the area around their respective COP and have Iraqi forces with them and together they would provide security for the local people.

Now, what’s happened since January is basically the transition from one plan to another. It should be obvious that you can’t take over a hundred thousand troops and move them from large, consolidated FOBs and distribute them into local “precincts” overnight. This has been done methodically and most of the work has not been doing the actual work of the surge, but the positioning of forces, movement of provisions, supplies, equipment, etc. Some stuff has taken place – those who were in place first have been conducting some limited operations, but the plan all along was to have ALL the troops, coalition, IA and IP, conduct a coordinated plan at the same time. That is happening now.

Kritter,

If you want to say Lugar is more courageous than the military people who actually have their lives on the line, then that’s certainly your prerogative, but I would disagree. After all, Petraeus, his advisers and the troops carrying out this mission have a lot more on the line than a political career.

You’ve given the hair the final coup de grace as far as meaningful discourse goes.

I’m done on this topic.
Now you can complain that I don’t let you spealk even though I’m letting you Have the last word, again.

I’ll be waitng for the new names for day 1, day 2…

Of course no one was quite ridiculous back in Jan or Feb to say that “the surge isn’t working”. Now, some people are saying that and so it is being clarified that the plan didn’t include a start of major clear and hold operations until mid summer, so we can’t possibly assess yet whether or not that is working.

Is that non-hair splitting enough?

What, somebody just now realized that the public was harboring a misocnception, after 6 months of news coverage and commentary (including by the administration)?

Yeah, I agree about splitting hairs.
Renaming one part of the surge as ‘just deployment’ is the hair that just got split.

The clarification was technically correct,.
It was also darned convenient and conveniently timed.

This is about ‘framing’. I don’t like it.
I prefer straight talk about events and less worry about the labels each stage is given.

As I said, I hope the surge works. I just hope each day of it won’t be given a different name.

That doesn’t mean the activities so far must be defined as “pre-surge” or “surge”. It means that the groundwork has been laid so far, using the battalions as they arrive. Then the actual clear and hold strategy begins (now).

All along, this was what was described, but some apparently thought that this was just pouring some more troops in to continue “staying the course” without a clear strategy.

The point being made about the surge just getting started is that we are just now getting to the part of the military strategy that has specific goals of clearing neighborhoods, holding the territory, and fostering redevelopment once the area is secure. That part hadn’t really started until all of the troops arrived, and that is why Petraeus said that it’s too soon to evaluate results. If we didn’t expect results yet, didn’t implement the actual strategy that is expected to produce those results (because we were just doing the prep work), then how can we evaluate?

Some have talked about moving the goalposts, and have complained that Petraeus and the administration are starting to hem and haw about the Sept report. Well, I agree to some extent but I also think others are guilty of moving the goalposts in the other direction by asking Petraeus to justify the surge now, before it’s been given a chance to get fully underway. And that doesn’t mean that what the soldiers have accomplished so far is meaningless, just that it’s a prelude.

Asking for definitions is fine, but I think we should be careful not to split hairs, either.

What do you call the exta troops deployed to Iraq since (I believe) January? Pre-surge troops?

What do you call their activities (patrolling streets, building walls)? Pre-surge activities?

As I remember, the first deployment was called ‘the first deplyment of the surge’.

If there is confusion, then the confusion was caused by how the last 6 months of activities were presented to the public.

Interesting, too, that this clarification only cames up now, when the body count has already risen disturbingly high and criticism increases. Which brings up a dilemma. Those who died didn’t die as part of the surge, because the surge hadn’t started?

I just want to get my terminology and definitions straight.

BTW, I’ve always hoped the surge would work.
While I wait to see if its foes, I’m dismayed by the distraction of word games.

I agree, that we still could debate whether or not it’s likely that the plan will work, but that is a whole different discussion.

I doubt it.

So you’re saying Senator Lugar knows more about the “surge” than the military officers and advisers who actually designed the strategy and are now in Iraq, on the ground, implementing it?

Oh come on!

Now you’re reduced to making baseless speculation and impugning motives with no evidence – actually against the evidence. The plan, from the beginning, was as I described.

I’m sorry, but I find it absurd that the commenters on this board feel they know more than the ranking expert on foreign relations, whose expertise is on Iraq, and from whom many others in the GOP take their lead.

I wonder if you would have the same opinion and hold Lugar up as an “expert” if Luger’s view was different? Somehow I doubt it. You seem unable to refute the facts about the surge, so you’re force into the “well, this expert believes it, so it must be true” argument.

Again, go back and READ WHAT WAS ACTUALLY SAID and has been said all along by the people WHO ACTUALLY PLANNED AND ARE IMPLEMENTING the surge. I think they know more about the surge than the honorable Senator Lugar.

No? Then how is it that we’re guilty of second guessing and thinking we know more than this “ranking expert” while you aren’t?

Or, we could do the usual and have it both ways, depending on which phrasing works.

Sorry, I can’t speak for Sen. Lugar. What’s clear from public statements by Petraeus, Gates and other senior officials from the beginning is that the troops required for the surge would not be in place until this June. If the people who planned and implemented the surge have repeatedly said the additional troops are necessary for the strategy to succeed, then it seems pretty illogical (and hardly fair) to call that strategy a failure when the necessary troops have just now settled into their op areas.

The surge was designed from the beginning to be a “rolling start” kind of operation that was not expected to hit full speed until “mid-summer” which is now. What’s so difficult to understand?

If that’s true why did Sen Lugar, a big supporter of the President, and the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee announce that he thought the surge wasn’t working and that a new policy was needed for the region? Because he wasn’t one of “those of us paying attention?”???