Loss leaders: Bush, Congress are muffing it in Iraq and War on Terror

fredericksburg.com ^ | 11/17/2006 | Paul Akers

[pinkpanther111]

Bill Cowan, a counterterrorism expert without partisan baggage, talked annually since 2003 with former Free Lance-Star columnist Rick Mercier about Iraq, Afghanistan, and the larger War on Terror. Editorial Page Editor Paul Akers last month conducted a fourth interview with Cowan, before the Nov. 7 election and the subsequent departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

A former Marine lieutenant colonel, Cowan runs a security firm, WVC3 Group, and offers commentary and analysis on network news channels. He maintains close contacts with the military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishments, synthesizing what he hears into highly informed opinions about a dangerous world.

Paul Akers: Welcome, Mr. Cowan. Last year, when you were interviewed by Rick Mercier, you said that we were "winning the Iraq war, however slowly." Is that still your estimate?

Bill Cowan: I think we are losing now, however slowly.

A little over a year ago, I thought we were marginally winning. I would say now we are marginally losing, and I would say that over the course of the last year and a half, we haven't done anything truly to change our strategy toward winning. We are continuing to make the same long-term mistakes, moving slowly with the Iraqis, yet not accomplishing that much.

Meanwhile, the insurgency continues to grow dramatically As I speak, we've lost 11 U.S. servicemen and -women in the last four days, killed. We've lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, up to this date, three times as many people already as we lost [in the invasion]. So we're having trouble everywhere. And certainly the situation in Iraq, with the militias, the sectarian violence, and the prospect of civil war, is much more dramatic than a year ago.

Akers: Yes, that's the impression we're getting, too. I don't see many rosy scenarios anymore.

...

[pinkpanther111]

This is interesting reading..... Interview with Lt. Col. Bill Cowan on current situation in Iraq and the war on terror.

[Cicero]

I was disturbed by two things: 1) his blaming Bremer for not listening more to the experts in the State Department; and 2) the statement that he has no axe to grind, yet works regularly for the news media--which says to me that he needs to say what the folks in the media want to hear.

Nevertheless, most of what he says makes sense. We should, indeed, have taken care of Syria. We should have used the Iranian opposition more to undermine the Iranian Mullahs. We should not have let fanatics take over in the Horn of Africa. A lot of mistakes. Granted the Democrats would have whined and screamed if Bush had done any of these things, but he needed to do them anyway, if the War on Terror was to be fought as it should be fought.

Whether Bremer was wrong in everything he did, I don't know. But it's likely true that we should have dealt with the tribal leaders earlier. We seem to be doing that now, and they are helping to nail the foreigners who have been making trouble.

[Ajnin]

I'm assuming that he thinks we are losing poltically.