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View From The Middle
Nobody was surprised to see the president’s attitude, especially in light of the trouncing defeat of the Republican Party in the Congressional elections just a few days before. Of course, President Bush knew things weren’t going so well in the Middle East. He kinda figured out — three years and almost 3,000 American lives later — that maybe his strategy would need some work. He had just fired Donald Rumsfeld as his Secretary of Defense, however reluctantly , and probably wished, down deep, that he could do the same to Vice President Dick Cheney. No matter, an apparent good man, Robert Gates, has now, officially, as of Monday, been given the reins as Leader of the Pentagon. I must admit, I liked him the minute he said he took the job because he thought he might be able to do some good. “I wouldn’t leave my post as president of a college just to be paid a dollar a year and be pushed around,” he said (paraphrased, of course). Now, one of the apparent stipulations of the ISG, a bipartisan, elite, elder-statesman study group, which was headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and co-chair Lee Hamilton, was that it at least help lead Mr. Bush in a different direction. The report cited all those things that had gone wrong since the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled and the president landed on board an aircraft carrier in his Air Force jumpsuit and announced, “Mission accomplished!” in 2003. The report then proceeded to elaborate on what went wrong, with the hope that Bush would heed all of its recommendations Mind you, we know what went wrong: The whole debacle went wrong! However, it was up to the commission to make suggestions — not compel. They — the ten members of the commission — seemed to present the report as a Strategy for Slow Retreat. That’s really all it is. We cannot forget one of the first phrases out of Baker’s mouth when he presented the report to the press — rather, to the world: “I hope this isn’t treated like fruit salad and say, ‘I don’t like this and I don’t like that.’” Frankly, I was looking forward to the report. God knows, the situation is a quagmire. But when I heard Baker say the fruit salad reference, my first reaction was, “Wait a minute. Who does he think he is? The President had better take a look at it like fruit salad. This so-called document is merely a line of suggestions by a bipartisan group, but it is no more binding than a statement of policy; some thoughts by thought-ful people”. And, yes, we desperately need some thoughtful people in this administration. We have all heard of some of the mistakes that have been made (one of which I just cannot repress at this time: Did you know there are more than 1,000 Americans employed in the American Embassy in Iraq — and only six can speak Arabic fluently?). The president was supposed to speak to the country a few days after reading the report from the ISG and tell us what he intends to do, but he delayed his speech, saying he wanted to “study the study” a little longer and think about it and talk about it with confidants. So far, word has it that he intends to not follow the recommendations and will bring in more American troops to home in on Baghdad, an “upsurge,” they call it. He’s not alone, of course. There’s presidential contender Senator John McCain, who has said all along that the current policy in Iraq is not working and that we must increase troops there. It is common knowledge that there are only about 4,000 of the 130,000 troops in Iraq who are actively training the Iraq army how to fight. The Iraqis are learning, yes. But at, oh, so small a pace. I have to tell you that waaaayyyy back when...when I was in the Air Force, I was attached for a time to what they called a MAAG unit. That stood for Military Air Advisory Group. We went Continued on page 27 around the world teaching military air traffic controllers from different countries how to control military air traffic, uh, from different countries. Experience tells me to tell you: It Ain’t Easy. When you’re in a foreign country — in the Middle East or China or anywhere that the culture and customs are so different, it takes more teachers, and more time, than you can imagine. We can praise the Iraq Study Group for their work and their thoughts and their perseverance. In the long run, it’s the president who now has the ball. When the 110th Congress takes over in less than two weeks, it will be Democratic (with a capital D), but the president will still have the final word. Like it or not.
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