Last week, John McCain made yet more misstatements about Iraq, this time falsely asserting US troop levels in Iraq were back to "pre-surge" levels, then denied he’d said what he said, leaving his advisers (and David Brooks) to clean up the mess by criticizing the media for nitpicking a minor gaffe about "verb tenses."

After all, "to be or not yet to be" are really the same thing, right? But there’s more to this.

The problem is not simply that McCain misspoke about the number or troops still in Iraq, or failed to mention that even after the surge’s extra combat brigades are removed, an additional 8,000 to 10,000 "support troops" would remain, leaving the total troop level in Iraq higher than when the surge began. These "facts" are not really in dispute, even though McCain muffed them all.

The more important point is that McCain made the same dishonest argument that George Bush has repeatedly made about the schedule for withdrawing "surge" troops. Months ago Bush stated that the extra troops can "return on success," implying they must achieve their mission before coming home. He repeated the "return on success" phrase when he "accepted" General Petraeus’ recommendation to begin withdrawing the surge troops from Iraq at about a combat brigade per month through the summer months, but to "pause" after withdrawing the five combat brigades.

But while Bush said this, the Pentagon told Congress (and media) that the withdrawal schedule was essentially independent of "success" in Iraq. That schedule was predetermined by the limits on combat tours and Gates’ public commitment not to lengthen the tours or further shorten the intervals between tours. As the 15-month tours of the extra "surge" troops expire (seven months for Marines), each combat brigade must be withdrawn, no matter what they’ve achieved, and there simply aren’t sufficient combat troops to replace them without depriving other theaters — especially Afghanistan, where violence is increasing — of the troops they need. As I’ve explained before, the "surge" is ending, successful or not, and we don’t really know whether conditions are such that Petraeus would recommend these withdrawals if he had a choice. Indeed, he’s described the "progress" there as fragile and reversible.

Most of our media either doesn’t get this math or can’t remember it. Yet McCain is using the same rhetorical slight of hand Bush did when saying we’re withdrawing surge troops because we’re succeeding. So even if we excuse McCain’s verb tenses the media should recognize he’s just as willing as George Bush to engage in the White House propaganda efforts to mislead Americans about why the surge troops are withdrawing.

McCain is free, of course, to argue the surge has improved conditions in Iraq. He can cite fewer US casualties or insurgent incidents last month of the type the military counts. He’ll have to ignore the categories they don’t count, including civilian casualties caused by fighting in Basra, Sadr City, Mosul; the hellish conditions in Fallujah; and the ongoing refugee and health crises caused by deteriorating water and sewage conditions. He won’t mention that surging in Iraq meant skimping in Aghanistan, where violence is surging and along whose border with Pakistan the Taliban operate openly.

As Siun’s extraordinary post and on-the-scene Iraqi guest emphasized last night, Iraqi citizens don’t count "progress" or "success" the way an occupying army might count it. I hope everyone reads through that post and the guest’s comments for a different perspective.

Today’s New York Times carries an extended article further illustrating this point. It seems we’ve managed to pacify certain areas — hence fewer reportable incidents than there used to be — but only by rounding up and imprisoning over 20,000 Iraqis, most of whom — 45 to 50 percent according to our military — are probably innocent of any crime other then being in a neighborhood US or Iraqi armed forces were sweeping. But because the detention review procedures we’re using are even worse than those at Gitmo, and we’re afraid to hand the detainees over to even worse Iraqi prisons, innocent Iraqis have been held without charges for years. Perhaps that’s one reason Iraqis are strongly resisting US efforts to agree on legitimizing an unfettered US military presence beyond Bush’s term.

I’ve never doubted that with enough troops and overwhelming firepower, an occupying army/air force could force a local population into submission, in the sense of converting them from open military confrontation to guerilla-type resistance. When that happens, I’d expect metrics for "progress" would show improvements, and the occupying army would call it "progress." But I don’t think anyone should confuse this condition with any of the democratic terms and reconciliation goals the Administration cynically uses to define "success" in Iraq. As Scott McClellan confessed, it’s just propaganda.


Related posts:

  1. In Iraq, As in So Many Contexts, Withdrawal is Victory
  2. Afghanistan “Success”
  3. ABC’s ‘This Week’ Adopts Fox News
  4. Torture: Obama Heeded Maliki on Abuse Photos, Says McClatchy; What That Says for Our Occupation
  5. The Major General’s Temper Tantrum