Pat Lang: Bush Would Rather See Iraq Go Up In Flames Than Admit He Was Wrong

[Ed. note: As pointed out by Lurch at Main and Central, Pat Lang was part of the DIA, or Defense Intelligence Agency, not the CIA as I errantly typed here. This is a mistake I've made before (I can blame it on PBS where Jim Lehrer's show used to ID him as CIA but someday, I'll remember as I type quickly).]

Powerful words from Pat Lang's (former DIA) Sic Semper Tyrannis blog:

"He is now caught between admitting the war was a mistake and his policy has failed, or trying to tough it out," said Joseph Cirincione, a foreign policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.

"It looks like the president would rather let the whole operation go down in flames than admit he was wrong." Reuters
--------------------------------------------------------------------Bullheaded. That is the characteristic described above. Persistence and tenacity can be virtues but an unwillingness to adjust to a realization of failed planning and execution is mere stubbornness.

Iraq is not the place Mr. Bush was told that it was. The various Iraqi peoples are not the peoples he was told that they were. The Middle Eastern region is not, etc...

Things are NOT going well. The president is going to approve a reinforcement of 4 Army brigades and two or three marine regiments for the express purpose of fighting a decisive battle of attrition first against the Sunni insurgents in the Baghdad area and then to "disarm" Sadr's Mahdi Army. This is a hell of a gamble.

The reinforcing units will be gotten by pulling units out of the rotation queue and sending them back to Iraq early. To make up the shortfall in the queue thus created the president and his advisers expect to create new, additional units over the next year and a half through an expansion in Army and Marine Corps end strength.

They think that the battle will have been won (or lost) by then, but, in any event larger ground forces are needed for the "long war."

Meanwhile, 7 more soldiers and up to 94 Iraqis are reported dead in the last 24 hours.

Thankfully, Mr. Bush is too busy shopping after Christmas sales to notice.