Iraq Veteran: Bush Ignored Military Realities

On the op/ed page in today's Tennessean, a soldier opines on the bleakness of the Iraq war, that the president ignored the military reality of Iraq.

I can almost hear the sadness in the voice of Iraq War veteran Mike Krause as another day passes, more of his brothers are maimed and killed, Republicans repeat talking points and the key players prepare for August vacation.

As I sit at this computer, watching a summer day fall on Middle Tennessee, it is hard to comprehend the fact that four years ago today, I was at war.

Four years ago, I was north of Baghdad, enduring the stifling Iraqi summer and daily mortar attacks. Now I sit in suburban traffic and help my wife pick out colors for our guest bedroom.

He goes on to say that he never would have imagined that four years later we would still be mired "so deeply" in a war in which they were told that they "would be greeted as liberators" and would be home in six months. Instead, he recognizes, that his brothers and sisters continue to die the same as they have since 2003 and that their names go on the growing lisst of over 3,600 Americans "who breathed their last breeath in Iraq."

He continues with America being at an impasse, the Bush administration "repeating the mantra" of General Petraus and September.  I am sure, of course, that Sergeant Krause has seen the latest "moving of the goalposts"when it comes to that once magical month.

Krause then quotes Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) from the Tennessean warning that "[o]ur ability to defeat al-Qaida and defend ourselves and our allies will hinge on our ability to make decisions based on military reality." However, he has the stark military reality for Blackburn and others as well.

Unfortunately for me and the other Americans who have served in Iraq, "military reality" has never been a strong basis for President Bush's decisions. The military reality in February 2003 was when Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki stood before Congress and said a war in Iraq would require "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." Defense Secretary's Donald Rumsfeld's top aide, Paul Wolfowitz, couldn't wait to call Shinseki's comments "wildly off the mark." As we all now know, the presence of several hundred thousand American troops might have stemmed the insurgency before it even began.

Krause lists a host of military realities, that:

• Soldiers have to serve 15 months "in the world's most dangerous country on the world's most dangerous roads."
• Stop loss is holding 50,000 soldiers involuntarily past their enlistment
• Only .004% of Americans have served in Iraq

  ensuring that the chorus of outrage that shuld be erupting from this military disaster is limited to the few people truly affected by the war.

He concludes with the bleakness of reality, regardless of the cheerleaders, the down is uppers, the "let 'em winners" and the Al-Qaeda-hate-us-for-our-freedom-fightem-over-there-before-they-kill-us-over-here-Mushroom clouders. That there will be no decisive victory, no utopian democratic Iraq.

Instead, the political ineptitude likely will continue indefinitely, the stubborn hubris will remain, and our soldiers will continue to pay the tragic price for a president who "misunderestimated" military reality.

And of course, in any forum open to wingnuttia, the responses began with an insincere thank you for your military service followed by a litany of disdain, fallacy and insanity. I won't pollute the words of Sergeant Mike Krause in this diary with their responses.