Senate fails to pass timetable for defeat

The Senate failed to pass an emergency appropriations bill that the Washington Post reports would have required President Bush to begin pulling troops out of Iraq immediately.  The bill is little more than an opportunity for congressional Democrats to posture.   

In May, Bush vetoed a war spending bill for Iraq that contained Democratic withdrawal conditions, and Congress backed off. Reid and Pelosi said they will not consider a new approach to the funding request until January. In the meantime, they said, the Pentagon could draw from its $471 billion annual budget to cover war expenses...

The Democratic terms that did not win enough support yesterday are less stringent than the ones in previous measures. For example, the current bill would have set a goal, instead of a deadline, for withdrawal.

In fact, according to Rasmussen the measure hasn't much in the way of public support.  A national telephone survey found that only 40% of those polled would favor a cut off of funding to force President Bush to redeploy the troops.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of voters say they want U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by the end of 2008. However, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 40% want Congress to cut off funding if the President won’t go along with the plan. Fifty percent (50%) are opposed to Congress using the purse strings in this manner while 10% are not sure.

Democrats claim they want to end the war in Iraq and say their repeated attempts to force a troop pullout are aimed at achieving that goal, but a troop pullout won't end the war.  It will only increase the risk of giving back those hard won victories of the last several months.

Fortunately, the battle for Iraq has pretty much been won by an Iraqi-American alliance painstakingly built under the leadership of General David Petraeus.  The plan for sustaining that victory is laid out in the U.S. Army/Marines Counterinsurgency Field Manual.  Here is an excerpt from the section on Host-Nation Security Forces Logistics:

8-34. HN-produced materiel should be procured and used to support HN security forces whenever it can meet requirements and is reasonably and reliably available. This practice helps stimulate the HN economic base and promotes an attitude of self-sufficiency in HN forces. It reinforces the important political message that HN security forces are of the people, not agents of foreign powers. When promoting these practices, logisticians may find themselves outside the normal scope of their duties when they assess the suitability of locally available materials and advise how to make such materials suitable for self-sustainment. The most valuable lesson logisticians may give to HN security forces and those supporting them is not “what to do” but “how to think about the problem of sustainment” and its link to security effectiveness.

Building a Military: Sustainment Failure
By 1969, pressure was on for U.S. forces in Vietnam to turn the war over to the host nation in a process now known as Vietnamization. While assisting South Vietnamese military forces, the United States armed and equipped them with modern small arms, communications, and transportation equipment—all items produced by and sustained from the U.S. industrial base. This modern equipment required an equally sophisticated maintenance and supply system to sustain it. Sustaining this equipment challenged the South Vietnamese economically and culturally, despite the training of several thousand South Vietnamese in American supply and maintenance practices. In short, the American way of war was not indigenously sustainable and was incompatible with the Vietnamese material culture and economic capabilities. South Vietnam’s predominately agrarian-based economy could not sustain the high-technology equipment and computer-based systems established by U.S. forces and contractors. Consequently, the South Vietnamese military transformation was artificial and superficial. Many South Vietnamese involved in running the sustainment systems had little faith in them. Such attitudes encouraged poor administration and rampant corruption. After U.S. forces left and most U.S. support ended, the logistic shortcomings of the supposedly modern South Vietnamese military contributed to its rapid disintegration when the North Vietnamese advanced in 1975.

Lessons of Vietnam have been well learned.  Under the Petraeus strategy the Iraqi Army and Police are unlikely to disintegrate as did the South Vietnamese military in 1975.  Congressional Democrats may redouble their efforts to bring about the defeat Senator Reid famously declared has already occurred, but with each passing day the Iraqis move closer to sustainability.

Comments

[King Groundhog]

It is possible those who enjoy the killing in Iraq are tiring; after all, The Lebanese Civil War ended after 15 years of madness. But Syrian occupation was required to achieve a modicum of peace there.

Since we already won the real war nearly 5 years ago, what are we trying to win now? We can stay until there is relative peace; the minute we leave they will be at it again so we have to stay there at current levels.

For what? So "they don't follow us here"?
That's one of the most insulting lines of all time, even more insulting to the IQ of the sayer
than the receiver.