U.S. military spokesman: the violence is, indeed, disheartening

By Lee Russ

Saturday, October 21, 2006 at 04:55 PM

How successful was the Pentagon policy of moving additional American troops  to Baghdad to quell the violence?

According to Gen. William Caldwell, a US military spokesman:

Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations in sustaining a reduction in the level of violence

The General also stated that "The violence is, indeed, disheartening." Yeah, especially since the additional 12,000 US and Iraqi troops thrown into Baghdad have produced "a 22% increase in attacks since the beginning of Ramadan."

Here's one hint to the Pentagon:  try to put as much real thought effort into devising strategy and tactics as you put into coming up with cool, uplifting names for the operations.  Operation Together Forward, indeed.

Then again, would that effort ever come to anything when the man in charge, our esteemed President, actually tells a television interviewer, in the same interview where he acknowledged the potential comparison to the Tet offensive:

My feeling is that they all along have been trying to inflict enough damage so that we leave.

Insightful, don't you think?  I'd be more impressed if he could name a single instance when that was not the goal of an insurgency against an occupying power.

Even worse yet, he seemed to imply that this was somehow an illegitimate tactic on their part.  Didn't they have any training at all on warfare and insurgencies in the short time he managed to attend duty in the National Guard?