October 21, 2005

The troop strength question

By Douglas Hanson
It's been an odd fight in Iraq: there has been a chain of highly visible political victories that have come about before we have completely defeated former regime elements and foreign terrorists.  In fact, the Multi—national Force Commander in Iraq, General George Casey, Jr., has said that we cannot win militarily, but that the Iraqis themselves would have to defeat enemy forces.  The successful passage of the new Iraqi constitution is a tremendous victory for the Iraqi people and a testament to the courage and tenacity of our service men and women. The lack of decisive military action to defeat the enemy visibly has caused backers of the war to doubt our resolve in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).  Some even see us as abandoning essential elements of the Bush Doctrine.  Critics of the President have repeatedly chastised him for not reordering our priorities by boosting the most visible aspect of our combat power: ground troop strength.  It is an...(Read Full Article)