Even with the surge, we'll be well short of the number of troops we need:
- Petraeus and his co-authors discussed this strategy at great length in the Army's counterinsurgency field manual. One point they made is that it requires a lot of manpower—at minimum, 20 combat troops for every 1,000 people in the area's population. Baghdad has about 6 million people; so clearing, holding, and building it will require about 120,000 combat troops.
Right now, the United States has about 70,000 combat troops in all of Iraq (another 60,000 or so are support troops or headquarters personnel). Even an extra 20,000 would leave the force well short of the minimum required—and that's with every soldier and Marine in Iraq moved to Baghdad. Iraqi security forces would have to make up the deficit.
Kaplan in another article in Slate
eta: Of course, when you look at where Bush got the numbers he's working with, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. (Note: Napoleon didn't win in the end, either.)
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“It was fortunate that so few men acted according to moral principle, because it was so easy to get principles wrong, and a determined person acting on mistaken principles could really do some damage." - Larissa MacFarquhar
Last edited by Tyrone Slothrop; 01-14-2007 at 04:37 PM..
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