Game Over

The surge is not working.

The statements of our present commander of forces in Iraq testifying on January 11 established that we'd need to evaluate on the basis of the results of the surge whether the Iraqis were meeting the conditions we/they imposed. Good morning, it's exactly two months later.

Gates told lawmakers that the U.S. military should know within months after the surge of U.S. troops begins whether the new strategy “bears fruit.” And if it doesn’t, he said in response to a question, “we will have to revisit our strategy.”

A few weeks after the surge began, the NYT carried an incredible description of the behavior of our supposed allies.

The duo.... was embedded this week with an American Army unit fighting on Haifa street in Baghdad -- a unit that had a horrible time not just with the enemy, but with its Iraqi Army allies.

The two report that at the outset of the day-long fight, "many of the Iraqi Army units" that had initially been assigned to search buildings in the neighborhood "did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own.

"When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns...Many of the Iraqi units that showed up late never seemed to take the task seriously," and when it came time to search apartments for insurgent activity, the Timesmen write that the Iraqis were "searching haphazardly, breaking dishes and rifling through personal CD collections in the apartments. Eventually the Americans realized that the Iraqis were searching no more than half of the apartments; at one point the Iraqis completely disappeared, leaving the American unit working with them flabbergasted."

At the end of February, a conservative estimate at ThinkProgress had to admit the great leap forward wasn't exactly living up to the usual promises.

‘Surge’ running behind schedule.Top U.S. intelligence officials yesterday disclosed to the Senate “that the deployment of Iraqi forces into Baghdad under President Bush’s new plan to stabilize Iraq is running behind schedule and that all of the units sent so far have arrived under strength, some by more than half. “ February 28, 2007 1:25 pm |

Now General Petraeus is saying we will know the results by the end of summer?

So today, the cretin in chief announces he wants more troops yet, an admission the 'plan' is a failure.

This is beyond any possible outer bounds of sanity.

Time has come for the reassessment Gates said was going to happen, not for sending more troops. No more targets need be sent in for the armed population of Iraq to practice their shooting skills on. The maladministration will never stop shifting its grounds and its outer limits. The grownups have to take back the toys.

Bedtime for Bonzo.