Retired generals bash Bush on surge plan

[sabra]

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/01/tnsoptions070118/

Retired generals bash Bush on surge plan
Generals have little positive to say about ‘surge’

President Bush says his plan to stabilize Iraq is the best plan out there. But even one of the men who helped think it up says it has a fundamental flaw.

The first wave of “surge” troops soon will arrive in Iraq as part of Bush’s plan to send in about 21,500 more troops. When they get there, they’ll be working alongside Iraqi forces, but the Iraqis will have the lead in stabilizing Baghdad.

That’s a big mistake, according to retired Gen. Jack Keane, former Army vice chief, who advised both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on an Iraq strategy that was strikingly similar to the one Bush announced. Keane, whose plan called for more than the 21,500 U.S. troops Bush is sending to Iraq, worried aloud recently that the chain-of-command issue is a critical one.

Putting the Iraqis in the lead for the Baghdad surge “makes no sense to me. I don’t understand that,” Keane told senators Jan. 18.

...

“We don’t have unity of command, therefore you don’t have unity of effort,” Keane told a Senate panel. “Every time we do something like that Â… we have military problems.”

[Demit]

1. That page has gone AWOL! (says your link).

Nonetheless, the excerpt says enough. Even the toady general is backing away from Bush's plan. Seems Little Boots just can't resist putting his personal twist on everything, just to make sure it will fail—which is looking more and more transparent as exactly what he wants to have happen.