A Victory Strategy

I wrote this last July, but it still seems oddly relevant today as the situation in Iraq is virtually the same as it was then.

Since our President's two point strategy for victory in Iraq ("stay the course" "until the job is done") seems to be so ineffective, I offer this as a strategy for victory.

1) Redeploy all American troops except for diplomatic detachments immediately. Currently, our troops are accomplishing nothing except for driving around with targets on their backs. They can not secure Iraq, Baghdad, or even the road to the airport. They are having no diminishing effect on the insurgents. Back in November Bush reported that we had trained something like 140,000 Iraqi police and soldiers. Leave them the materiel and retain detachments of our coalition partners to continue training and combat supervision.

The insurgents have repeatedly stated that they will continue their attacks on the Iraqi people until the American occupation force leaves. In addition, many Iraqis blame the Americans for the insurgent attacks. Lets call the insurgents bluff. If they continue, the Iraqis can deal with it as what it is: a civil war. If it turns into a war of militias, the Sunnis will be defeated. Then Iraq can exercise their democratic freedom to creat a Shia Islamic state.

In Afghanistan, after one year we drew down troops and special ops forces to approximately 1/3 of the previous level. Granted that these forces were transferred to participate in the war in Iraq, but the fact that we have not increased these troop levels in the face of a rising Taliban indicates that the administration believes our efforts there are adequate and effective.

2) Retain a strike force of 25 - 50,000 troops in Kuwait to support Iraqi government troops as needed. On the rare occasion that we have actually attacked insurgents (Fallujah and the two strikes on the northwestern town) we used relatively small detachments (5-10,000 troops). One airborne division and a Special Forces group should do the trick. Air support comes from carriers.

3) Turn all reconstruction money over to the Iraqi government to rebuild infrastructure. Let them administer the contracts as they see fit. They may indeed let contracts to non-American (yes, even French!) contractors, but these non-American contractors will be able to get the job done with considerably fewer security problems because they are not American. Of course, this will obviate one of the strategic objectives of the war (contracts for American contractors such as Halliburton and KBR) but Cheney's buddies will have to live with this. If the Iraq government is not capable of handling this process after two years, they never will be.

4) Pay for the war. Remember, "Freedom isnt Free." Wars cost money. Pay for the war by rescinding Bush's last two tax cuts.

5) Increase budgets by 100% for anti-terrorist, covert intelligence operations in the CIA and FBI each year for the next five years. With all our new-found allies in Iraq, we should have no trouble recruiting willing covert operatives to infiltrate terrorist groups around the world. THIS is the fight we need to be fighting, not invading countries and engaging in decades-long campaigns of nation-building. Read my lips: No nation building!

6) Deploy troops withdrawn from Iraq along the border with Mexico. Change legislation as needed to authorize this, if necessary. Our Homeland Security efforts have ignored this, our nation's greatest security threat. AND, begin to enforce again our laws against illegal hiring so that we can begin to stem the tide of this dangerous illegal immigration. Recently I read a government report that indicated that there were about 497 employer arrests in 1998 and only THIRTEEN in 2003. What is this all about? Illegal workers are not a security threat, but as long as we are allowing 1,000,000 per year to stream across our porous border, terrorists have easy access.

7) Dont invade any more countries that have not attacked us. Please.