Opinion (Robert Mackey): Surge like you mean it

Now that it is widely accepted that there are simply not enough US soldiers on the ground in Iraq to effectively fight the insurgency, the Bush administration is apparently considering a plan that would include what an article on the op-ed page of yesterday's New York Times calls "a surge of perhaps 25,000 more American troops to Iraq." On the Daily Show, Bill Kristol explained the hoped-for result of this surge, telling Jon Stewart "I think we do have a chance to win and we need to take our shot at winning and that requires more troops to pacify Baghdad."

So, can 25,000 additional troops really give the US a "shot at winning" the war in Iraq? Well, if you look at the first line of this chart, which accompanies that Op-Ed in the Times, comparing conditions in Iraq one year ago with conditions now, the answer seems to be: absolutely not.

What the chart shows is that there are now 140,000 US troops and 17,000 other soldiers from what's left of the Coalition Of The Willing in Iraq. One year ago, when things were somewhat less terrible, but very far from good, there were 160,000 U.S. troops and 23,000 COTW troops there. Yes, that's right, adding 25,000 troops now will get us back to the good old days of November 2005, a month when 1,800 Iraqi civilians and 96 American soldiers were killed, there were 41 multiple-fatality bombings and 1,000 Iraqi doctors were either murdered or kidnapped.

Read the rest at the Guardian