Bush's Last Stand

Well, with all the leaking beforehand, there's no point in watching the president speak tonight except to watch him twitch while he tries to sell his snake oil policy of staying the course, dressed up in a different name, as a new way out of Iraq. The numbers vary but it appears the basic plan is going to be sending a pitiful 17,500 - 21,000 soldiers into a meat grinder. And against the better judgement of his generals that Bush earlier vowed would be in sole charge of the battle plan.

I guess that's the new part of the strategy. Now the plan appears to be to cover The Great Decider's posterior until he can sneak out of town, so he's apparently going to take over the generals' jobs as well and tell them how to run their war. This isn't a plan for victory. It's a plan to run down the clock so Bush won't have to preside over the inevitable retreat.

We can't even muster the whole force at once. We can't afford to equip them with the safest armor technology. But here's the real slap in the face to our troops.

A report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the IED problem came about in large measure because there were not enough U.S. troops in Iraq after the 2003 invasion to secure Saddam Hussein's ammunition caches.

In the weeks after the invasion, vast amounts of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, artillery shells and other explosives were stolen from unguarded Iraqi arsenals.

"IEDs made from looted explosives have caused about half of all U.S. combat fatalities and casualties in Iraq and have killed hundreds of Iraqis," the GAO said.

When we needed the boots on the ground, way back in the beginning during the invasion, we didn't have them because Bush and Rummy decided then they weren't needed. Now he's pushing troops when the generals say they won't help. Nixon had Watergate, it appears Bush is headed on a straight course to his Waterloo.