Posted on 12/17/2006 10:41:36 AM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Exclusive: Former Secretary Of State Says More Troops Isn't The Answer
(CBS News) WASHINGTON -- The United States is losing the war in Iraq but sending more troops to Baghdad is not the best way to change course, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Face The Nation.
Powell said he agreed with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group co-chairmen, Lee Hamilton and James Baker, that the situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating," and he also agreed with recently-confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that the U.S. is not winning the war.
"So if it's grave and deteriorating and we're not winning, we are losing," Powell told Bob Schieffer in an exclusive interview. "We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around."
President George W. Bush is considering several options for a new strategy in Iraq. The most likely choice would be to send tens of thousands of additional troops for an indefinite period to quickly secure Baghdad.
A 3,500-man brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division will be sent to Kuwait soon after the holidays, CBS News correspondent David Martin reported on Friday. The troops would be available immediately should the president order a surge into Iraq.
There are about 134,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now.
Powell, also a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not see the military benefit of flooding Baghdad with American troops.
"I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work," he said, adding that the Iraqi government and security forces must take over.
"It is the D.C. police force that guards Washington, D.C., not the troops that are stationed at Fort Myer," Powell said. "And in Baghdad, you need a police force to do that, and in the other cities, you need a police force to do that, and not the American troops."
Powell also doubted that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are large enough to support such an operation.
"The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform," Powell said. "We need to let both the Army and the Marine Corps grow in size, in my military judgment."
Asked directly what the U.S. should do in Iraq, Powell said:
"I think that what we should do is to work with the Iraqi government, press them on the political peace, do everything we can to provide equipment, advisers, and whatever the Iraqi armed forces need to become more competent, and to train their leaders so that those leaders realize their responsibility to the government."
Powell, who as a member of the Bush Administration pushed the international community to sanction the invasion of Iraq, said that we are not safer now after nearly four years of fighting.
"I think we are a little less safe, in the sense that we don't have the same force structure available for other problems," Powell said. "I think we have been somewhat constrained in our ability to influence events elsewhere."
Nam Vet
OK, thanks. I really don't want a neighbor across the bridge thinking I don't support our troops or the mission because sometimes I think that that is all that I can think about. Sometimes its frustrating only being able to do just that.
If you say anything here that detracts from the mandatory line that we're really winning no matter what the press says, then you're labeled unAmerican or against the troops, or any host of idiotic slogans. It's like arguing with a liberal.
It's been interesting. I'm just praying that with all the dedicated and intelligent people we have in this country someone can come up with a plan to bring sanity to Iraq and the Greater Middle East.
I guess Belafonte can stop calling Powell a "house negro" now.
If we could split up Iraq into 3 different countries in order to stop the in-fighting I'd be all for it, but then there arises the problem of one or two of those countries turning hostile towards us and establishing 2 more terrorist states. But of course the Sunnis and Shias don't want the oil fields going to the Kurds. I don't really see a solution unless we can convince the major Iraqi sects to stop fighting, but it looks like civil war is gonna be the course for Iraq and we're stuck in the middle. That being said I do not favor rapid withdrawal, but more aggressive military operations where necessary and continuing with trying to reach resonable negotiations between the Kurds, Sunni-Arabs, and Shiites.
Not to go off subject (my support and sympathies with Moonbat) but your comment above would be hilarious were it not so tragically accurate. It's an amazing, amazing, totally predictable psychological phenomenon, arguing with the Left. Teaching occasionally at the local college I have plenty of opportunity, and it's like discussion with the talking mandarin, it only goes one direction. In the absence of any esoteric psychiatric nomenclature I just call it bigotry. My ninety three year old mother, wiser by thirty years, calls it stupidity.
Colin Powell is, and has always been, a Democrat. He never liked George W, they were just using each other; Dubbya wanted Colin's popularity, Colin wanted a platform to advertise his "doctrine". He was the Barack Obama of the 90's. Remember how he insulted Republicans about affirmative action at the 2000 convention? Remember how he said he'd work for Gore? Remember how his apologists on talk-radio kept acting like he was one of them, regardless of what he said? The whole thing was pathetic, and no one should be surprised by what he's saying to the media. The only real interest I have about Powell is why he is a registered Republican, when he clearly believes in NOTHING conservatives believe.
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