PRESS RELEASE
Two Top Intelligence Veterans Assail Bush `Surge' Schemes
Dec. 18, 2006 (EIRNS)—W. Patrick Lang, retired U.S. Army Colonel and onetime Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, and Ray McGovern, a retired 27-year CIA analyst, co-authored an article for TomPaine.com on Dec. 18, ridiculing the Bush Administration's moves to bring an additional 50,000 troops to Iraq for the next year as a way of "surging" to victory. Denouncing Bush's "stay the course" approach, the authors warned that incoming Defense Secretary Bob Gates may not realize it, but the Bush-Cheney "surge" policy means that "the U.S. military is about to commit hara-kiri." The authors drew the parallel between Bush-Cheney and Czar Nicholas II and Rasputin.
Turning to a more in-depth analysis of any "surge" deployment, Lang and McGovern warned, "A 'surge' of the size possible under current constraints on U.S. forces will not turn the tide in the guerrilla war. Reinforcement of Baghdad by several thousand U.S. troops last summer simply brought on more violence. Those who believe still more troops will bring 'victory' are living in a dangerous dream world and need to wake up." They continued, "Moreover, major reinforcement would commit the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to decisive combat in which there are no more strategic reserves to be sent to the front. It will be a matter of win or die in the attempt. In that situation, everyone in uniform on the ground will commit every ounce of their being to a hope of 'victory,' and few measures will be shrunk from. Analogies come to mind: the Bulge, Stalingrad, the Battle of Algiers. It will be total war with all the likelihood of excesses and mass casualties that come with total war." The authors conclude: "To take up such a strategy and force our amred forces into it would be an immoral course of action, both for our troops and for the thousands more Iraqis bound to die." They concluded with quotes from Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who, last week, denounced the expanded troop deployment as "criminal." Lang and McGovern added: "If adopted, the 'surge' strategy will be even worse than that. It will be something we will spend a generation living down."
