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November 25, 2006

Hot Story: Salvage Operation

Beltway Boys

ANNOUNCER: Coming up on THE BELTWAY BOYS President Bush and Iraq's prime minister meet next week as tough choices loom over the next steps in the war.

Mitt Romney and John McCain start the trash talk already over who's more conservative.

Another critic of Vladimir Putin winds up dead after a mysterious illness. We'll have the fallout.

And has America had enough of sleaze? Believe it or not good taste is making a come back. We'll explain.

THE BELTWAY BOYS are next after the headlines.

(NEWSBREAK)

FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: I'm Fred Barnes.

MORTON KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: And I'm Mort Kondracke and we're THE BELTWAY BOYS.

Well, Fred the hot story of the week is salvage operation. I think President Bush's policy in Iraq is at its lowest ever. You have sectarian violence exploding in the country. 210 Shiites killed in bombings in Baghdad. Reprisal operations where the Shiites are butchering Sunnis including six people burned to death while Iraqi troops were standing around doing nothing to intervene.

Iran is flexing its muscles demonstrating its strength and responding to U.S. weakness by inviting Iraqi politicians to Tehran. And the only good news in this picture is that so far at least Nouri Al-Maliki the prime minister is not caving in to the blackmail of Muqtada al-Sadr the radical Shiite who's saying if you go meet with President Bush I'll leave the cabinet or leave the government. And Maliki is so far going to meet with Bush next week in Jordan.

Somehow out of this mess, Bush has got to figure out how to fashion a new strategy that will lead to victory or success. Something that could be called success. What I would hope he would do is renew and in fact upgrade the American commitment in terms of personnel and time and patience and somehow convince the American people to go along with it. But given his political weakness, I don't know that he can.

BARNES: No, I think he can. I think he can if he is tough and wise. And I think there are a couple of steps we can take in the short run in the next couple of months. One of which I think he will. The other he probably won't. But the one he will I bet you, and this is not something I dreamed up. It's been widely talked about particularly by some of the generals in the Pentagon and in Iraq and that is to increase slightly but a few thousand, the number of American troops in Iraq and use them strictly to train more aggressively a larger and a better Iraqi army. So they don't stand around while Shiite militia men are burning to death Sunnis. We don't want that to happen. And so that's something that I think, the other one which he probably won't do I would call the Lincoln Maneuver after Abraham Lincoln. Who you remember during the Civil War when things did not go well with a particular general in charge, Lincoln would fire that general. Of course most famously George McClellan who he fired for not wanting to fight.

The military effort in Baghdad which is the key to the whole operation in Iraq is not going well. Baghdad has not been pacified or secured and you can't entirely blame the American generals, but there has to be accountability here. The generals in charge now were the ones in favor of this small footprint whereby American troops aren't fully engaged in combat operations and the idea being a big footprint will somehow enrage the Iraqi people. Bush could remove them and bring in new generals in favor of a bigger footprint where American troops, who after all are the best troops in the world, would be more actively engaged in fighting the terrorists. Not just participating with the Iraqi army and coaxing the Iraqis. They would be involved more. It would obviously be more successful. Or at least I think so.

KONDRACKE: Well he did fortunately fire the great author of the small footprint strategy which was Don Rumsfeld.

BARNES: No, it's the generals.

KONDRACKE: Oh yes, come on. Look, you read any book about the Iraq war and comes out of it is that Bush and Rumsfeld consistently ignored the advice of people like Anthony Zinni and Eric Shinseki who said you have to have more troops. And Rumsfeld did everything he did to intimidate the generals into being for small troops. Now I am not saying it's all his fault. Because they are obviously going along with it, with that strategy.

BARNES: Right.

KONDRACKE: Look I don't know what Bush is going to do. We agree on what we think he ought to do. We don't know if would work. But for sure, what is going around right now doesn't seem to be working anyway. We know there are three major reviews going on in Iraq that will be made public soon. The Iraq study group is the first one. This is the bipartisan panel headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton.

What they are reputed to be talking about is a regional conference that would involve talks with Iran and Syria. Why Iran and Syria would do us any favors there it would seem to, I don't understand. I mean, the first thing that Iran is going to want is permission to go ahead with developing a nuclear weapon. I don't see that that's a starter; that goes anywhere. But maybe Baker can figure out some way to do it. There are stories to the effect that Baker will recommend a short term upgrade in U.S. Forces which would be a good thing. I hope he will do that and if Baker does that, I think that's the only way to get the Democrats to agree to increase forces. Because the Democrats obviously want to pull down forces either fast or slow.

BARNES: Yes, that might hold off pressure from the media as well. You know, the media is obviously hoping, desperately hoping that Baker will come in with some report that attacks the policies of the Bush administration if not Bush himself.

Now look, count me as a skeptic of the Iraq study group for sure. You just have to look at the membership, the ten members of this group. And then ask yourself some questions, or I'll ask myself one anyway.

Here are the names; James Baker, Lee Hamilton, Lawrence Eagleburger, Vernon Jordon, Ed Meese, Sandra Day O'Connor, Leon Panetta, William Perry, Chuck Robb and Alan Simpson.

KONDRACKE: You want to know what does Sandra Day O'Connor know about the military?

BARNES: Not only Sandra Day O'Connor but what about Vernon Jordan? A wonderful man. But what does he know about Iraq. And Ed Meese knows a lot about domestic policy and other things but you know, is he one of the go-to guys on national security? Or Leon Panetta or Alan Simpson?

I am not criticizing them personally. They have done many good things in life. But come up with a solution in Iraq? I don't think so. A lot of these are not people you turn on national security. Plus we know from Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute who was one of the staffers on this commission, that he has written about this in of all places, "The Weekly Standard", that the staff is just stacked with people who are hostile to the Bush policy. So we have an idea of where this group is headed and wants to be. And I agree with you on Iraq and Syria. I mean what are they doing right now? They are doing all they can to destroy the fledgling democracy in Lebanon. So they are going to help in Iraq? I don't think so.

KONDRACKE: Well, the second big Iraq report is the Pentagon's review run by Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Peter Pace. "The Washington Post's" Tom Ricks calls the options that they are working on "Go Big' which involves significant increases in troops. "Go Long" which means a pull down of forces but staying a long time to do training. Or "Go Home" which speaks for itself.

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: What the policy seems to be is in an amalgam of those which is to go big on a short term basis and then go long on a longer term basis to do lots of training over a long period of time. Which would be an acceptable strategy. But I don't know if Bush can sell it.

BARNES: Well, look, it does make sense, though. If it's a short run strategy of an increase, I think he may be able to sell that or just order it. You know he can do it on his own. I mean, I don't think Democrats are going to riot in the streets, though they might. But it is not- at least that would not be a disguised retreat which I think is what the Baker Iraq study group wants.

And Peter Pace may be willing to criticize the strategies and tactics used in Iraq up to now. For instance, the small footprint, because those generals don't work directly for him. They work for the defense secretary under the way these things are arranged now. I think the Pentagon report could be a very important one.

KONDRACKE: And finally the third report is the National Security Council's report which I would guess is going to be what the president want it's to be, you know.

BARNES: If it's not, the Bush policy is really in trouble.

KONDRACKE: Yes, and that's the decisive policy which he has got to proceed to sell to the country. The question is whether the country has the patience to stick with this endeavor? I don't see signs that it is and the evidence is last November's elections which were all about Iraq.

BARNES: And there is worse evidence and that is Vietnam where the public allowed it to just slip away even after all the American troops were withdrawn.

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