REVISITING THE SURGE….Remember how President Bush’s supporters bitterly complained last month when critics claimed that the “surge” in Iraq was just a desperate ploy cooked up because both withdrawal and doing nothing were politically unacceptable? Remember how they claimed that in reality it was inspired not by political cynicism but by the sober military recommendations of Frederick Kagan and Gen. Jack Keane?
That was then. Here’s Frederick Kagan now:
This is not our plan. The White House is not briefing our plan.
Back to political cynicism then? If neither the joint chiefs of staff nor the commanders on the ground in Iraq backed the plan, and if Kagan says Bush’s plan isn’t the one he and Keane proposed, then whose forehead did it spring from? Dick Cheney’s?
