Bush Plans To Double Troops In Iraq, Destabilize Iran

Concurrent with Congressional Democrats bowing out on their push to tie funding of the Iraq War with a timeline for troop withdrawal, a Hearst Newspaper analysis shows that President Bush may double troops by the end of the year. Analysis of Pentagon deployment orders shows that "the number of combat soldiers [in Iraq could increase] from 52,500 in early January to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year."

US Liberals Guide Deborah White found the report and says that she is "at a loss for words to adequately convey the abject moral wrongness of the Iraq War in mid-2007."

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me remind you of last year's Iraq Study Group report (page 30, emphasis added):

Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation. A senior American general told us that adding U.S. troops might temporarily help limit violence in a highly localized area. However, past experience indicates that the violence would simply rekindle as soon as U.S. forces are moved to another area. As another American general told us, if the Iraqi government does not make political progress, “all the troops in the world will not provide security.” Meanwhile, America’s military capacity is stretched thin: we do not have the troops or equipment to make a substantial, sustained increase in our troop presence. Increased deployments to Iraq would also necessarily hamper our ability to provide adequate resources for our efforts in Afghanistan or respond to crises around the world.

And then there's The Blotter, which reports that "the CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert 'black' operation to destabilize the Iranian government." This seems a dangerous game of chicken, as The Age is reporting that "Tehran has increased the number of its intelligence agents across Europe" and may be "target[ing] Europe's nuclear energy plants."

In case you've forgotten, in the 80s we sold arms to Iran in a weapons-for-hostages deal that came to be known as the Iran-Contra affair.

Related: US Continiuty of Government Plan

Other reading:

• Brian Ross, ABC News Undermine Non-Military Plan Against Iran - Confederate Yankee
• Cave In? Or Smart Politics? - The London Guardian
• A Collapse For Democrats - Sen. Feingold
• Democrats drop troop-pullout timetable - USA Today
• Democrats relent on pullout timetable - MSNBC
• Did Congress Authorize Either of These Actions? - Gun Toting Liberal
• More Treason From The Media - Iowa Voice
• Well, This Takes All The Fun Out Of It - Captain's Quarters