I did mention the two-pronged approach which Michael Ware deems to have started two years ago. Any earlier than that and there was no Awakening Movement to speak of, so getting the Sunnis to be our allies in the battle against al Qaeda wasn't possible until recently. It wasn't until too many civilians were killed deliberately by al Qaeda before the Sunnis began to turn against them. The strategy put in place by the president and General Petraeus took advantage of that movement and used that to kill al Qaeda.
That was part of the Surge movement, not a separate item. Michael Ware seems to be incorrect in that respect as the new alliances were part of the new strategy. Ware seems to be saying that the 30,000 soldiers weren't necessary. He's wrong there, too. In previous battles, US soldiers would clear a hostile area but wouldn't have sufficient troops to stay in the region as a garrison. So once they left, the enemy would simply return. The Iraqi people knew this and would refuse to help the Americans out of fear of al Qaeda. They knew once the US left, al Qaeda would return and kill anyone who helped the Americans. The Iraqi people weren't confident about helping until they were certain the US troops would remain after clearing the town.
The Ambar province was a hotbed that the US had to clear out repeatedly. How many times did we have to fight in Fallujah or Ramadi before we kept the towns clear once and for all? Once they received the additional soldiers, there were then enough troops to maintain garrisons once the al Qaeda terrorists had been killed or captured. This prevented their return and opened up the possibility of additional help from the populace.
So Ware's comments are ignorant of that aspect of the operation and of the limitations in intelligence due to the fact that people were afraid they would be killed once the Americans left. Once we started getting help from the population, we started killing al Qaeda commanders in bushels.
Besides, it's CNN. When have they ever been right? Just look at all the lies about Palin. CNN is one of the guiltiest in passing out those vicious false rumors about Palin. They might as well have put Markos Molitsas, creator of the Daily Kos, in Soledad O'Brien's chair.
By the way, that report you linked to is typical of the left. Lies have been redefined. There were no lies on the part of the Administration and no one can possibly prove there were. Every intelligence service in the world, including those fickle allies who wouldn't help us, believed there were large stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. If that had proven to be true and Saddam had used them, Democrats would have been calling for Bush's head for not stopping him before he could use them. So this Center for Public Inaccuracies, oops, I mean Integrity calls bad intelligence a lie.
Sorry, that doesn't wash. Bush never lied. You can believe he did, but you'd have to revise what that word means. Besides, the Iraqi Survey Group did locate 500 chemical warheads and the Poles bought another 17 rockets loaded with active, deadly cyclosarin that they had discovered were about to be sold to al Qaeda in central Iraq. So Bush wasn't even wrong in the literal sense. It wasn't enough to satisfy the press, but he wasn't wrong. Notice that no administration official has ever said there were no WMD found. They have always been careful to say no STOCKPILES were ever found.
Name even one foreign intelligence service that thought Saddam didn't have any. The incompetent Hans Blix doesn't count as an intelligence service. The German ambassador even ridiculed our evidence as woefully inadequate compared to what they had, which definitively proved Iraq had WMD. You won't be able to name any, btw. The French, Germans, Russian, and even the Israelis with the best intelligence service in the world believed large stockpiles of WMD existed. Who would know better than the Israelis and the Russians?
You also completely ignore the second half of the report by the ISG. In the second half of the report (which the press completely ignored because it didn't fall into the "Bush Lied, People Died" paradigm) clearly stated that Saddam was actively using the Oil-For-Food program to buy off officials in the UN and in France and Russia in order to get them to lift sanctions. Much of the rest of the money was diverted into priming his WMD programs, including chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. As soon as France and Russia had gotten the UN sanctions lifted, Saddam intended to resume full production. Yes, the press ignored all of that because it wasn't convenient for them.
Saddam wasn't a danger... yet. The Left even cast what President Bush said about Saddam as a lie, saying he was claiming Saddam was an imminent threat. He clearly stated before the invasion, "We cannot wait for Saddam to be an imminent threat because by that time it will be too late." So the left is proven to be liars while Bush's statements must be redefined or twisted into lies. So the mantra of "Bush lied, people died" was wrong. The Left lied, our soldiers died as their constant barrage of criticism and demands for a pullout from day one only encouraged the enemy to fight harder. The enemy even timed their car bombs for the US news cycle, making sure the bombs were in hearing distance from the hotels the news reporters were staying in. Like dupes, the enemy used American reporters to destroy support for the war effort.
Most Americans want to be safe. That's why we didn't particularly appreciate that many of our prominent allies didn't back us up. The chief antagonists were France and Germany. It wasn't until Angela Merkel was elected in Germany that relations began to warm up somewhat. Still, we were willing to go it alone if it was in our national interest to do so. Since all world coalitions are basically made up of the United States and everybody else, we didn't actually need anyone else's help. We just needed support, not active resistance. Just as an example, look at the Balkans. The mighty Europeans couldn't do a thing and Yugoslavia was in their back yard. It took the US military to depose Milosevic and save the ethnic Albanians.
BTW, that's the only time the modern Left ever sanctions the use of the military: when we have no interests at all in the region. When national security is at stake, then no, we can't use the military.
The resentment in this country when we got no support from others was palpable. Remember the Freedom Fries? Europe, especially, has always been cowardly in modern history, refusing to move until it was far too late. Just look at World War II as an example. If Europe had moved decisively and much earlier than they did, it's quite possible far fewer than 51 million people would have died. Americans don't wait until it's too late. We didn't want to wait for a massive attack costing millions of lives before we acted.
It seems that people always talk about how America has damaged its image in the world. Well, those countries severely damaged their image in our eyes, but those in the anti-American press never seemed to understand that part of it.
When you say that most people just wanted their loved ones home. That will always be true, but most, if not all, of the actual military personnel didn't want to go home without victory. They wanted to complete the mission they were given and then come back. I will guarantee that most of the people who wanted our soldiers home before a victory was attained didn't have anyone in the theater to begin with. It's no surprise that the military votes Republican overwhelmingly. They don't trust liberal leaders. That's why Al Gore tried to disallow their votes.
A defeat may not matter to you, but it would have been catastrophic in consequences. If you thought 9/11 was bad, al Qaeda would have been free to do it again, not just against us but against all of our allies. This is why the Left can never be trusted in a war. They don't think it's a big deal if we lose. It's much better to get the world to like us than to stay alive.
There are always consequences for losing. Just look at our abrupt pullout from Vietnam. While many on the Left say that nothing bad happened afterwards, just ask the millions of displaced Vietnamese who tried to find a new home, many of them dying in small boats trying to reach safety. And ask the residents of Cambodia when three million of them were exterminated by Pol Pot as a direct consequence of the US leaving the region.
