The Zong

Here’s a quote from your president. Try and figure out when he said it:

“We’ll continue to be flexible, and we’ll make the changes necessary to succeed,” Bush said in a speech [time and place completely inconsequential]. “But there’s one thing I’m not going to do. I’m not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.”

Yup, he said it yesterday. (In Latvia) It’s the same old song, but with a different meaning now that we’re considering giving up on the Anbar province altogether:

Faced with that situation in al-Anbar, and the desperate need to control Iraq’s capital, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace is considering turning al-Anbar over to Iraqi security forces and moving U.S. troops from there into Baghdad.

“If we are not going to do a better job doing what we are doing out [in al-Anbar], what’s the point of having them out there?” said a senior military official.

Riddle me this: What will constitute the “completion” of our mission? Handing over entire provinces to the Iraqi security forces? That would be a great idea, if only they were ready for it. A few people in our government think that they probably aren’t, though. Neither does Anthony H. Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and who just returned from Iraq:

Criticizing statements about how many Iraqi army units are “in the lead,” Cordesman notes that the Iraqi army “lacks armor, heavy firepower, tactical mobility and an Iraqi Air Force capable of providing combat support” — the same points McCaffrey made yesterday.

“No administration official has presented any plan to properly equip the Iraqi forces to stand on their own or give them the necessary funding to phase out U.S. combat and air support in 12 to 18 months,” Cordesman says. He writes that the Iraqi army could need U.S. support through 2010.

So once again, how’s that mission going?

- M.G.