the active general officer in charge of our actions in Iraq

The "active general in charge of our operations in Iraq" is a post subject to the whims of the Commander-in-Chief, George W. Bush. They serve at his pleasure. He- and he alone- has the ultimate power to assign, transfer, and dismiss every general serving in the U.S. armed forces.

Goodbye, General Shinseki: "...several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground- force presence..."

Goodbye, General Sanchez- as a of that Iraqi goodwill mission known as Abu Ghraib- or more to the point, of the public disclosure of it. Oops. That wasn't supposed to happen.

Goodbye, General Abizaid: "...In State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III (as excerpted in Newsweek magazine), journalist Bob Woodward of the Washington Post wrote that on March 16, 2006 Abizaid was in Washington to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He painted a careful but upbeat picture of the situation in Iraq." Subsequently "he went over to see Congressman John Murtha (D-Pa), the 73-year old former Marine who had introduced a resolution the previous November calling for the redeployment of troops from Iraq as soon as practicable." Abizaid said he wanted to speak frankly, and "according to Murtha, Abizaid raised his hand for emphasis and held his thumb and forefinger a quarter of an inch from each other and said, “We’re that far apart."

Goodbye, General Casey: "..."The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq’s security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias. And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all of Iraq’s problems, which are at base their problems. It’s always been my view that a heavy and sustained American military presence was not going to solve the problems in Iraq over the long term."

Abizaid and Casey are commonly criticized by supporters of Bush's conduct of the Iraq war for their opposition to the escalation of U.S. forces known as "the surge." But the criticism invariably falls wide of the mark, because Abizaid and Casey's concerns weren't directed at the ability of the surge to have short-term success in reducing the violence in Iraq. Instead, they argued that the surge would increase the dependency of Iraqis on continued US involvement, thus hindering the goal of having an independent Iraq standing on its own feet, with the ability to run its own institutions and carry responsibility for its own protection and security- the long-term strategic mission (ostensibly.)

Hello, General Petraeus. He seems like a smart guy, and like all military professionals can be counted on to never publically express the slightest doubt about any mission he's been ordered to lead. But his job is sort of like rounding up the horses after the barn has burned down. How long he can keep them all corraled is uncertain. There are still plenty of them running loose. And still no barn.

Those who tout the "success" of the surge as if it were a done deal- like John McCain- have succumbed to the self-deception inherent in a view that only focuses on a narrow slice of metrics, such as a comparison of the number of violent incidents and casualties with those of previous years. They also fall prey to the bureaucratic tendency to attribute all positive results as a direct result of the single factor of the surge. But much of the decrease in violence is likely due to the fact that the array of local armed extremist groups had already accomplished most of their territorial and political goals- intimidation of opponents; local blood-feud "cleansings"; assasinations that placed their own favored alternatives in the posts of succession; and the array of other violence that has led to the flight of more than 10 per cent of the country's population beyond the borders of their homeland, as refugees. Hence, the number of targets has diminished. So they've returned to "milking the cow."

A more realistic analysis of the success of "the surge", and of the wisdom of the Bush-directed American effort in Iraq, would factor in measures of the public attitudes of the Iraqi population to their occupation; measures of public confidence in the integrity and competence of the Iraq national government put in place at the behest of the occupiers; measures of rebuilding the infrastructure and the national institutions to the minimum standard required to allow the 4 million-plus refugees to return to their homeland to live safe and productive lives. Simply pointing to a couple of annual comparisons showing a decrease in the number of violent incidents and casualties says nothing about the long-term prospects.

Can any of you Iraq Invasion supporters honestly say that you anticipated the extent of the difficulties that have followed it? Do you even remember what you thought would happen, before the war began? Now, 4 1/2 years on, you're settling for a lower casualty rate for US troops (not counting the wave of PTSD, and the increasing rate of veteran suicides) as proof of "success." The mantra "let the troops 'finish the job' and get out" from 2004 and 2005 has been superceded...the goalposts keep moving, the clock has been re-set. Again. Sort of like a stop-loss order notice.

The peoples of Iraq are well-versed in smiling in the face of conquerors. Not "treachery", just resistance. And they also have the sort of patience attendant to the certain knowledge that they live there, and their occupiers do not.

For the time being, they're milking the cow.