Bush's 'Surge' Gets Mixed Reviews
By Jason Leopold
ConsortiumNews.com
July 24, 2008
President George W. Bush’s Iraq War troop “surge,” which is now ending, got a mixed report card from congressional investigators, who found that many of Bush’s stated goals remain unmet.
The Government Accountability Office reported that violence in Iraq has dropped over the past year, but that the training of Iraqi security forces still lags, Sunni insurgents have not been defeated, cease-fires with Shiite militias are fragile, and political reconciliation has not been achieved.
The supposed success of the “surge” has become a central issue in the presidential campaign, with Republican candidate John McCain and many of his press allies accusing Democrat Barack Obama of refusing to admit that he was wrong to oppose the troop increase in 2007.
Obama has argued that several factors, which pre-dated the “surge,” contributed to the decline in violence, including the decision by Sunni tribal leaders in 2006 to turn against the indiscriminate violence of al-Qaeda – and a cease-fire declared by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Obama’s more nuanced assessment provoked an angry retort from McCain, who told CBS News anchor Katie Couric, “I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what happened.” McCain insisted that the “surge” was responsible for the Sunni tribes repudiating al-Qaeda.
However, McCain later was forced to amend his comments during a campaign stop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he acknowledged that the so-called Anbar Awakening of Sunni tribal leaders against al-Qaeda did begin in 2006, months before Bush announced the “surge” in January 2007.
(Continued here.)
ConsortiumNews.com
July 24, 2008
President George W. Bush’s Iraq War troop “surge,” which is now ending, got a mixed report card from congressional investigators, who found that many of Bush’s stated goals remain unmet.
The Government Accountability Office reported that violence in Iraq has dropped over the past year, but that the training of Iraqi security forces still lags, Sunni insurgents have not been defeated, cease-fires with Shiite militias are fragile, and political reconciliation has not been achieved.
The supposed success of the “surge” has become a central issue in the presidential campaign, with Republican candidate John McCain and many of his press allies accusing Democrat Barack Obama of refusing to admit that he was wrong to oppose the troop increase in 2007.
Obama has argued that several factors, which pre-dated the “surge,” contributed to the decline in violence, including the decision by Sunni tribal leaders in 2006 to turn against the indiscriminate violence of al-Qaeda – and a cease-fire declared by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Obama’s more nuanced assessment provoked an angry retort from McCain, who told CBS News anchor Katie Couric, “I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what happened.” McCain insisted that the “surge” was responsible for the Sunni tribes repudiating al-Qaeda.
However, McCain later was forced to amend his comments during a campaign stop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he acknowledged that the so-called Anbar Awakening of Sunni tribal leaders against al-Qaeda did begin in 2006, months before Bush announced the “surge” in January 2007.
(Continued here.)
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