Too Much, Too Late

Cheney & Rumsfeld Spurned Petraeus Peace Model

After gallantly disassembling Iraq, Tricky Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld decried any attempt at nation building in favor of a gestapo like US military presence. Once again they were dead wrong.

The new Commander in Iraq knew better when he was in charge of Mosul and established a command more reminiscent of City Hall than Cheney's current occupation from hell. Everything from schools and hospitals to a friendly cop on the corner calmed the uneasy city.

The problem is that the 3 stooges didn't like his approach when it could have mattered. Petraeus used 20,000 troops to replace gunfire with trust and clearly would need even more troops for all of Iraq than even the surge will provide.

Had his methods been accepted early and the "insurgency" quelled, recruiting soldiers in the US might not have been so difficult and international Non-Government Organizations (NGO's) may have been more willing to step in.

Of course that might have threatened Halliburton and Bechtel profits, something Cheney couldn't allow.

It's damned if you do, damned if you don't time. A rapid pullout may spark a bloody civil war that outstrips even Saddam's cruelty and bloodshed.

The Democrats seem fearless charting a path through this minefield, but if the world sees bloody pictures of Iraq in full scale civil war the Dems stand a good chance of being repudiated and the balance of their agenda will be unachievable.