The president’s plan for Iraq is called “A New Way Forward.”
It might as well be called “Rejection of Reality.”
The president has decided to go on his own, escalating forces overseas with a new war plan to send upwards of 20,000 additional troops.
To accomplish this he has recently shifted his national security team and military leadership in Iraq and announced a plan last week that will send even more families’ sons and daughters overseas.
An opportunity was missed with the presentation of the Iraq Study Group. They offered bipartisan suggestions for creating a new plan for a troubled situation.
Ed Board feels that American troops will needlessly suffer more causalities due to sending more troops overseas. Troops have worked hard in Iraq, but the situation on the ground is uncontrollable, and the Iraqi leaders seem unable to take control.
President Bush appears to be out on a limb by himself with his want of more troops.
Democratic senators, as well as some Republican senators are coming out against the president’s new plan. According to MSNBC, Democratic leader Senator Harry Reid spoke out saying, “Based on the advice of current and former military leaders, we believe this tactic could be a military mistake.”
Ed Board agrees.
Why would the president now choose to send in 20,000 more troops?
This past December was the bloodiest month so far in the war in Iraq with the death toll hitting 3,000.
We feel the soldiers and soldiers’ families have done their part in the war and it is time to come home and let the Iraqis begin to fight their own wars and achieve their own successes.
The goal is not to be occupiers, but rather to be there assisting Iraqis in running their own country. The Bush plan shifts the focus back on to the American troops and further delays any assumption of duties by Iraqi military or police forces.
White House executives claim the new plan will also address political and economic issues. But Ed Board wonders how sending more people away from America to fight overseas can benefit or help economically at all.
Twenty thousand more men and women are going to be shipped away from their homes, some who have already made one or more tours overseas, and for what?
To appease the whim of a man who has already sent thousands of other peoples’ mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers far away.
This plan is not a new way forward.
It’s a way to shift responsibility to the next administration.
