For fans of WaPo and
Fiasco, Thomas Ricks had an interview yesterday on
Fresh Air which was pretty good, and covered a wide variety of stuff, including the surge. Stuff that I did not know, but know now, included the following:
* Even if the order were given tomorrow to evacuate entirely and immediately, it would take 12-18 months to get everyone and everything out. We have a massive, massive amount of equipment and materiel in Iraq, and basically one road back to Kuwait. Even if we ran 30 convoys a day every day, each with 100 or so trucks, it would take 10 months to get it all out.
* The military is planning to try and push congress and the administration away from the current, simplistic, and false dichotomy of Stay Indefinitely at Full Strength, or Leave Entirely, because it's a bullshit argument. Neither are practical, real-world solutions, because with the former, we simply can't stay at current levels beyond March or so without breaking the Army, and for the latter, if we completely leave the bloodbath will be just that. So, in September, don't look for a thumbs-up or thumbs down from the military's report. Instead, look for the military to press decisionmakers to think about what they really want the next steps to be.
Gattigap
