Getting burned repeatedly

MoveOn.org went too far with that "General Betray Us" newspaper ad (which did serious political damage - to the wrong party), but that certainly doesn't mean Gen. Petraus's report on Iraq should go unchallenged. As Reason's Steve Chapman notes, optimistic predictions by the U.S. military have not been realized, time and time again:

Petraeus is, by all accounts, an experienced, capable and intelligent commander. So when he says that "the security situation in Iraq is improving," the natural impulse is to trust his battle-seasoned judgment. The Bush administration encourages this notion by suggesting that the opinions of military commanders are the only sound guide to policy.

But if high-ranking military officers are a good barometer of the future, I have a question: Where are the generals who told Americans when things were about to get worse in Iraq, as they have over and over? Which of them warned that insurgent attacks would steadily proliferate in 2005, after elections that were supposed to quell violence? What guy with stars on his shoulders forecast that Iraqi civilian deaths would double over the course of 2006?

Who told us that last year's military strategy of "clear and hold" would fail—as even the administration admitted afterward that it had? Who predicted that the average number of Americans killed each month this year would be 34 percent higher than last year?

Not the top brass, which has consistently taken an optimistic public stance since the beginning. ...

[...]

...Given the choice, it's better to have commanders who believe they can overcome any adversity than commanders who are easily discouraged. But sometimes, as we have learned repeatedly in Iraq, optimism is just another word for self-delusion.

Read George Will's column on the subject, too.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at September 13, 2007 07:27 PM