Bush and His Iraq Plan

12/28/2006

Paul Munnis


We fully expect Bush to stall, procrastinate, and delay any change to his present Iraqi policy.


Stall: He will give press releases about how hard he is thinking about Iraq and how he doesn’t want to get it wrong (again).


Procrastinate He will try to put off saying anything tangible until his State of the Union address to the nation in January. At that time he will produce a plan so controversial that implementation will be delayed for months while Congress holds hearings and sorts it all out.


Delay: Bush often buys time delay by hiding behind the press coverage of key events. The execution of Saddam will be one such delay. By delaying he hopes to give the Iraqi government time to get it’s act together, time for military recruiting and training, and time for Saddam to be executed, and then time for things to calm-down somewhat.


In all fairness he has lousy options open to him. These have been reviewed many times in the press and we will not go over them again. But even as he stalls, procrastinates, and delays, some of his options are going away.


The option that we like best is for Bush to submit his resignation to Congress. He doesn’t discuss that option though. Call it the “silent option.”


In the meantime something is happening because a Battalion has been moved into Kuwait. These troops will form the “surge” force we suspect. While staged in Kuwait they will be supplied, equipped, and made ready for Baghdad. We would not be suprised to see another Battallion deployed to Saudi Arabia in time to cover for Hajj.


We suspect they will be used to help cordon off Baghdad and that American troops will join Iraqi forces in street control. We also expect Baghdad to go under martial law and curfew. There may be a resettlement component to the plan too, one where Sunni’s are escorted to safe places. (If it were me I’d give free flights to Saudi-Arabia to Sunni’s to attend Hajj and then have them remain in settlement camps there until the killing can be stopped and controlled inside of Iraq).


A plan to put Baghdad on lock-down is likely and we think that stalling, procrastinating, and delaying, is a ploy to buy time for Iraq to get its government under control and its troops ready for combat.


From our viewpoint anything that gets our troops out of being bottled up in Baghdad is an improvement. Get them outside the city where they have some maneuvering room.


We waited three years for this war to get resolved and I guess that we can stand a little bit more waiting.


In the end it’s our troops who are paying an awful price for Bush to salvage his pride.

For more information on Hajj - click HERE.