Is Petraeus' Testimony Relevant to the Debate on Iraq?

This is from the Huffington Post today by CT Senator (and presidential aspirant) Chris Dodd, I think I am in complete agreement with my senator on this particular issue:

Today, the much-anticipated testimony on the status of our combat mission in Iraq was delivered to the U.S. Senate by Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David H. Petraeus, President Bush's top commander in Iraq. Yet for me, the anticipation surrounding the testimony rings hollow given the abject failure of the "surge" tactic to achieve political reconciliation or even a reduction in overall violence. But even more fundamentally, I question the relevance of a report on the merits of a particular tactic when the underlying strategy - that there is any military solution to the civil war in Iraq - has failed. As such, the debate we should be having is not whether this tactic is having limited success or not, but rather whether our involvement in this civil war is making our country safer.

The "surge" has failed to meet its stated goals. For all the White House talk about improvements in Iraqi security, we have just witnessed the bloodiest summer yet in Iraq. Are the 30,000 additional American troops helping clear some insurgent-run neighborhoods in Iraq? Absolutely. But these insurgents just move elsewhere in the country. As one soldier told me at Walter Reed after the surge began an hour-and-a-half after our soldiers leave following a month's work, the insurgents return. In an interview on CNN this summer, General Petraeus also confirmed that American forces had to return to some neighborhoods that had already been cleared. Little wonder one opinion poll conducted jointly by the BBC, ABC News and NHK of Iraqis revealed that approximately 70% of Iraqis believe security has actually deteriorated in the area covered by the US military surge of the past six months. This "whack-a-mole" strategy has led to the bloodiest summer of the war...

The "surge" is not a strategy, it is a tactic. And the strategy has failed because we are not safer. The overriding reason we are in Iraq is because President Bush believes the war makes America safer. There's no reason to believe it is. The same BBC/ABC/NHK survey suggests that nearly 60% of Iraqis see attacks on US-led forces as justified - 93% among Sunni Muslims, who make up almost all of al Anbar Province where the Administration touts so much progress. Meanwhile, America's reputation in the world is tarnished and America's ability to combat international terrorism impaired - the result of our continued involvement in Iraq. And as we expend hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq and stretch our military thin, the Taliban is reemerging in Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden is still at large. Safer? Hardly.

By every measure, the surge has failed - to secure Iraq, to help forge political reconciliation there, or make America safer.

The debate we should be having is not on how we change tactics, but how we change policy. It is clear to me, and as today's testimony reinforces, that half-measures will not change the policy of this White House. We need to send a clear message to the President and the Iraqis that it is time for a change of course. That is why I have stated that I will not support any measure that does not include a firm, enforceable deadline for redeployment. I urge other leaders in the party to join me.

It is time we realize that all we are doing is putting our fingers in the dyke's, like some little dutch boy. As soon as we think one hole is plugged we move onto another one, only to realize that the water has begun to seeping again from the first hole. This is not the way to run a war. This is a losing strategy, which we can never win. Jeff over at We're Going to cover that in phase 2, wrote an excellent analysis of why our model of government won't work in the Arab Middle East, especially in a multi-tribal country like Iraq.

Check it out and let me know if you agree with me and my senior senator, that the surge is a tactic, not a strategy, and that what we need now is a change in policy.