Pace Declares 'Sea Change' in Iraq

[Richpo64]

Pace Declares 'Sea Change' in Iraq
By ROBERT BURNS
Associated Press
July 17, 2007

RAMADI, Iraq (AP) -- In his most optimistic remarks since the U.S. troop buildup began, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that Iraq has undergone a ''sea change'' in security in recent months, and that this will influence his recommendation to President Bush on how long to continue the current strategy.

After conferring with Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin and other commanders in this provincial capital west of Baghdad, Pace told reporters he has gathered a positive picture of the security environment not only here but also in Baghdad, where he began his Iraq visit on Monday.

He was asked whether this would inform his thinking about whether to continue the current strategy, with extra U.S. troops battling to security Baghdad and Anbar province.

''It will because what I'm hearing now is a sea change that is taking place in many places here,'' he replied. ''It's no longer a matter of pushing al-Qaida out of Ramadi, for example, but rather -- now that they have been pushed out -- helping the local police and the local army have a chance to get their feet on the ground and set up their systems.''

Pace said earlier in Baghdad that the U.S. military is continuing various options for Iraq, including an even bigger troop buildup if President Bush thinks his ''surge'' strategy needs a further boost.

Pace said the chiefs of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force are developing their own assessment of the situation in Iraq, to be presented to Bush in September, that will be separate from a report to Congress that month by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander for Iraq.

The military must ''be prepared for whatever it's going to look like two months from now,'' Pace said Monday in an interview with two reporters traveling with him to Iraq from Washington.

''That way, if we need to plus up or come down'' in numbers of troops in Iraq, the details will have been studied, he said.

Pace, on his first visit since U.S. commanders accelerated combat operations in mid-June, said another option under consideration is maintaining current troop levels beyond September.

There are now about 158,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, reflecting a boost of about 30,000 to carry out the new strategy Bush announced in January. The plan is focused on providing better security for Iraqis in Baghdad, but the intended effect -- political reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites -- has yet to be achieved, and many in Congress are clamoring to begin withdrawing troops soon.

In Washington on Monday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he would force the chamber's first all-night debate on the Iraq war Tuesday night in advance of a vote Wednesday on whether to bring home all combat troops by next spring.

Republicans are using Senate rules to insist that the measure have 60 votes to pass -- a de facto filibuster since it takes that many votes to cut off debate.

Pace conferred Monday with Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, who said he did not currently foresee requesting more troops.

''Right now I can't find an assessment where I would say I need more troops,'' Odierno said, adding that he is confident that by September he will be able to give Petraeus his advice on how the troop buildup is working.

''My assessment right now is, I need more time'' to understand how the offensive targeting al-Qaida in Iraq is working and how it could lead to political progress, Odierno said.

''I'm seeing some progress now here in Iraq. We have really just started what the Iraqis term 'liberating' them from al-Qaida. What I've got to determine is what do I need in order to continue that progress so that the political piece can then take hold and Iraqi security forces can hold this for the long term.''

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2007/july/0717_pace_iraqp.shtml

[Michael Tee]

THAT'S what we're all waiting for, a "sea change."  Is it anything at all like a light at the end of the tunnel?

[Lanya]

Pace retires in September. I guess they have to make him debase himself by telling these awful whoppers while he's still around. 

[Michael Tee]

Hitler kept gambling the lives of German soldiers hoping in vain for a miracle until the Red Army was on his doorstep and his only option was suicide.  With Bush, the end won't be so dramatic.  He'll just keep throwing away the lives of his soldiers till his term is over and it becomes someone else's problem.  Someone he can blame for losing the war that he almost had in the bag.  Or take credit for if the next guy pulls it off.

[BT]

I would place the odds at 60-40 that the next admin is democrat.

The leading candidates are not advocating total withdrawal.

It may not be Coke but it will be Pepsi.

And they are both Colas.

So when you impugne the integrity of one "they" aren't you setting up the other "theys" for the same fall?

or is it somehow different when your party is in power.

[Michael Tee]

I never gave the Democrats a blank cheque.  I thought I was clear that I did NOT support the DLC, or "Democrats" like Lieberman, Pelosi, etc.

The Democrats are "my" party only to the extent that they are led by people I can respect, like Denis Kucinich or Howard Dean, the so-called "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

If Peolosi-type Democrats retain control of the party and fail to move left, they will be "the enemy" as much as the Republicans are today, at least in the field of foreign policy.

I think there's a real crisis in American democracy today in that the people have absolutely no interest in pursuing this war but the corporate-controlled media will not back an unconditional and immediate pull-out at this point (this will change when the business and financial community come to believe that too much money has already been poured into this venture) and the so-called "two-party" system provides absolutely no opportunity for a real debate (and election) based on a simple stay-or-go choice.  (Because IMHO, it's not really a two-party system)

[BT]

Sounds to me like disenfranchised democrats need to get behind folks like Dean and Kucinich instead of slobbering over the potential power gained by a successful Clinton or Obama campaign and the ineveitable heartbreak that will follow.

[Michael Tee]

I'd like to see them get behind Cindy Sheehan and blow Nancy Pelosi out of the tub.

[gipper]

What mindless nonsense. People without responsibility, as here, often become irresponsible and target the serious for not playing the "game" right.

[Michael Tee]

This arrogant pretension to determine that Sheehan is "not serious" and that Pelosi is "serious" is at the heart of the Democratic Party's malaise and growing irrelevance.

Pelosi was swept into power on a wave of disgust with the war (and/or possibly, as BT claims, disgust over Republican moral corruption.)  Nevertheless, the antiwar feeling had enough power behind it that it should have been acknowledged in some way, not the wishy-washy Pelosi/DLC bullshit that in effect says "We oppose the war but we'll keep it going."

There are more serious issues than "seriousness" at stake here.  Integrity for example.  The only way to reconcile being against the war with not defunding the war is to pretend that defunding is somehow anti-troops.  That is plain bullshit.  Intellectual dishonesty at its worst.  Defunding the effort would require an immediate pull-out of the troops within a very short time, following which none of them would be endangered in any way.  But as I understand domer's complaint, anyone who indulges in this senseless gobbledegook (defunding the war hurts the troops) is "serious" and anyone who not only opposes this kind of claptrap (and who moreover has lost a son to it) is "not serious."

What bullslhit.

[Plane]

It was a trap top get oneself elected by promiseing something that one knows one cannot deliver.


A headlong retreat from Iraq is a bad idea , a win there is a good idea , lots of Democrats know this but they can't say it.

Note the other thread in which people voteing for "family values " are frustrated by the election of hypocritical liers , ...


Hey man, we feel your pain.

[Michael Tee]

<<Hey man, we feel your pain.>>

Thanks, plane, I feel better just knowing that.

[gipper]

Michael, here's a clue: don't ever lecture anyone about arrogance. Further, those with responsibility often (though not always) rise to the challenge and approach a problem in all its complexity, and its plentiful ramifications, to settle on a salutary course, which often is not popular according to superficial sentiments of citizens switching attention back and forth between reality shows, say, and the CNN "hard news." That states succinctly why we have a representative democracy, not a "straight" democracy: provision is made for the place of intellect and conscience, we hope, divorced from the fads and fashions of the times. In this regard, we have Cindy Sheehan, whom I have personal sympathy for but reject soundly as any kind of a political leader. That she is an icon (akin to Jane Fonda in her time? Hah, she should be so lucky) does not make her an oracle of any wisdom whatsoever, let alone political. She has experienced an emotional loss of incalculable dimension, but she is not thus transformed into a sage: she is simply a woman who cannot contain her grief, as we all do eventually by the nature of communal life, who parlays that hurt into a seeming self-perpetuating cry for help and action, in the realm where reality show meets the news.

[Plane]

"..........She has experienced an emotional loss of incalculable dimension, but she is not thus transformed into a sage: she is simply a woman who cannot contain her grief, as we all do eventually by the nature of communal life, who parlays that hurt into a seeming self-perpetuating cry for help and action,.........."

Very well said!

I have a lot of sympathy for her too , but sympathy isn't agreement .

[Michael Tee]

<<Michael, here's a clue: don't ever lecture anyone about arrogance. >>

What exactly are you trying to tell me, domer?   

I wasn't lecturing, but you made a pretty arrogant statement and that you cannot deny.

<<Further, those with responsibility often (though not always) rise to the challenge and approach a problem in all its complexity, and its plentiful ramifications, to settle on a salutary course, which often is not popular according to superficial sentiments of citizens switching attention back and forth between reality shows, say, and the CNN "hard news.">>

I see.  So you, domer, and of course Nancy Pelosi, have "risen to the challenge" and "approached the problem in all its complexity" (that's a GOOD thing) whereas Cindy Sheehan, unfortunately, has taken her position after studying only a collection of old Ted Rall cartoons (a BAD thing) and has thus failed to rise to the challenge.

Why am I not falling for any of this?

<<That states succinctly why we have a representative democracy, not a "straight" democracy: provision is made for the place of intellect and conscience, we hope, divorced from the fads and fashions of the times. >>

Yes, I can see how "intellect and conscience" personified in their highest form by Bush and Cheney have led you into Iraq in the desperate quest to save America from the power and might of Saddam Hussein and his implacable horde of 23 million crazed Iraqis.

<<In this regard, we have Cindy Sheehan, whom I have personal sympathy for but reject soundly as any kind of a political leader. That she is an icon (akin to Jane Fonda in her time? Hah, she should be so lucky) does not make her an oracle of any wisdom whatsoever, let alone political. >>

Nah, how could she be?  Obviously, her failure to side with you and Nancy on the stay-or-go issue demonstrates incontrovertibly her failure to approach the problem in all its complexity.

<<She has experienced an emotional loss of incalculable dimension, but she is not thus transformed into a sage: she is simply a woman who cannot contain her grief, as we all do eventually by the nature of communal life, who parlays that hurt into a seeming self-perpetuating cry for help and action, in the realm where reality show meets the news.>>

Or, she's simply pissed off by an irrational, indefensible, cynical and criminal series of unlawful and unjustifiable war crimes, atrocities and massacres following in the wake of an illegal invasion and a flood of lies which have cost her the life of her son and is now determined to take the issue to the people of California and let them decide.