Iraq Timetable? The Bush Blame Game

The New York Times reported in its Sunday edition that the Bush administration poo-bahs, who have us quagmired in Iraq, have drawn up an Iraqi timetable.

Notice that it is not a timetable for ourselves. That's an important part of the "blame game" strategy that the Bushies have formulated. It's not to win the war. It's to blame someone else for losing it. The Iraqis, instead of Bill Clinton, will be blamed this time.

They have set time frames for the al-Maliki puppet governement to accomplish certain things, e.g., disarm militias, and other political and economic benchmarks that they probably cannot attain.

"Although the plan would not threaten Mr. al-Maliki with a withdrawal of U.S troops...the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy" if the Iraqis didn't sign off on the plan.

Any plan that doesn't threaten withdrawal of troops for non-compliance is a joke. It will be like moving chairs on the Titanic, except much more serious. Those "chairs" will be our undermanned troops being moved from province to province again.

The only other alternative would be for the U.S. to "Fallujah" all of Sadr City and wipe out the Shiite militias, mainly the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades, ourselves. We would need a lot more troops, which we don't have.

We would also need the public political will prepared to take many more American casualties. The mid-term elections will show that that political no longer exists due to the disastrous execution of the Bush occupation of Iraq.

No credibility equals no political will, Boy George.

The Iraqi timetables/benchmarks/ guideposts, or whatever they want to call them, will only help Bush play his political "blame game." I can hear Bush now: "We lost the war because the Iraqis didn't meet the benchmarks we gave 'em."

This type of planning is exactly the kind of gradualism that extended the Vietnam War. It accomplished nothing. It did cost a lot more lives.