Chuck Hagel to McCain: Surge This

[Poiuyt]

65. The surge ended because we started to bribe the Sunnis

In all this talk of surge success, very little is being mentioned of the immense amount of cash being handed over to many of Iraq’s violent tribes and militias – putting vast amounts of criminals on U.S. payroll to NOT reach for their automatic weapons and plant IEDs. You got it. We’re monetarily bribing down the violence. And we’ll likely continue to do so as we reduce troop numbers.

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Finally, CNN offered an interview with terrorism expert Peter Bergen on 360 last night in which he said,

I actually think both the Democrats and the Republicans have been overemphasizing the surge. If it was just about the surge, the violence would be back up again because the surge is over. There are some underlying factors that are much more important in Iraq in my view.

One — the fact that Al Qaeda in Iraq, they basically scored a series of own goals by its Taliban-style tactics, producing this wave of revulsion against and amongst the Sunnis. Now we put up a 100,000 Sunni militia on the American payroll, people who used to be shooting at the United States who are now on our payroll.

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http://politicalmpressions.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/money-not-surge/