Surge strategy was a hard sell

Violence in Iraq got even worse after the bombing of the golden mosque of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra on Feb. 22, 2006.

By late 2006, military, leaders, and most Democrats and Republicans in Congress wanted out of Iraq.

Arizona Sen. John McCain was the "loudest voice" for a changed strategy in Iraq, and he reportedly "badgered" President Bush and national security adviser Stephen Hadley with phone calls urging that more troops be sent to Iraq, according to a Feb. 4, 2008 article in The Weekly Standard, "How Bush Decided on the Surge."

The fact that Bush was able to persuade the Joint Chiefs of Staff to give the counterinsurgency plan the green light set the stage for a turnaround in the Iraq conflict.

When the president proposed the "surge" strategy to the Joint Chiefs in December 2006, the country's top military brass were "unethusiastic," the article said.

It's no surprise that nearly everyone in the political community, the media and foreign policy establishment was opposed to the counterinsurgency strategy that called for sending more troops.

Only Bush, the vice president and a handful of National Security staffers were backing the plan in fall 2006, according to the article. Among the surge supporters was Robert Gates.

Gates, who had served as CIA director under the president's father, was president of Texas A&M University in 2006. He had also served on the Baker-Hamilton Commission.

The day after the November 2006 elections, embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was out, and Gates was named as his replacement.

According to The Weekly Standard, Rumsfeld had rejected the surge when retired Gen. Jack Keane proposed the plan in September 2006.

Keane was in contact with other retired and active Army officers, included Gen. David Petraeus, who believed the war could be won by implementing a counterinsurgency strategy that would put U.S. and Iraq troops together in local communities to protect Iraqi citizens against insurgents and al-Qaeda, the articles said.

Other troops would go on the offense to drive out and kill extremists.

Eventually, McCain, Keane Petraeus, a network of Army officers and former West Point professor Frederick Kagan (a contributing editor The Weekly Standard), provided support for the unpopular plan.

The surge plan was bolstered by the realization in October 2006 that tribal leaders in Anbar province had allied with U.S. Special Forces against al-Qaeda.

On Jan. 10, 2007, Bush announced strategy publicly. Democrats "condemned" the surge, according to The Weekly Standard, and Republicans "were mostly silent."

On CBS's "60 Minutes" Sunday (Sept. 7), author Bob Woodward detailed the Joint Chiefs' resistance to the surge plan. He discusses the strategy in his new book, "The War Within."

A secret study by the Joint Chiefs in 2006 concluded that the U.S. was losing the war, Woodward said.

But a "secret and lethal" Special Operations program was launched, and it has been highly effective in killing insurgents. Because the program is classified, Woodward would not reveal the military's latest secret weapon.

When asked what Bush's advice would be on Iraq to the next U.S. president, Woodward said, "Don't let it fail."

Character, judgement and Iraq

Showing the character Americans have come to expect of him, Sen. John McCain gambled his political fortunes by supporting the unpopular counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq in 2007.

His remark that he'd rather lose an election than lose a war spoke volumes about his character, and put him in stark contrast to liberal Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama, who were prepared to sell out U.S. troops and withdraw from Iraq prematurely.

The news that the counterinsurgency and "surge" strategy was succeeding robbed Pelosi and Reid's mob of the one issue that got them elected in 2006.

Putting their political fortunes before the good of the country and our troops could be a costly lesson for those defeatists in Congress come Election Day.

One can only hope American voters will do the right thing and vote them out.