The changing complexion of troop 'surge' in Iraq
Since Bush's move to send 21,500 troops, he and the military want more. Is it too much strain on US forces?
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the March 14, 2007 edition
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WASHINGTON - In the military, they call it "mission creep."
It's a way of describing how a mission expands, typically in small, barely discernible steps. And before anyone knows it, the operation looks much different.
So goes President Bush's plan to increase troops in Iraq, according to critics, whose concerns include the strain on military resources.
Army Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander in Iraq who helped pen the US military's counterinsurgency manual, has long believed that a large number of troops is needed to fight an insurgency. Some believe as many as 250,000 troops is the only way to do it right. General Petraeus inherited Mr. Bush's escalation plan, which was announced before he arrived in Iraq, and he may well want more troops. Currently, 141,000 are deployed in Iraq.
While many hope Petraeus will be the white knight to save Iraq with as little troop increase as possible, critics believe he'll continue to ask for more troops until he gets what he needs. It is, in essence, an example of mission creep, they say.
"They bet the farm on Petraeus," says Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official under President Clinton who is now with the Center for American Progress in Washington.
In January, Bush announced that he would send 21,500 combat troops to Iraq to help stem the violence there in what most agreed was a last-ditch effort to achieve success. Since then, more than 2,400 troops were also identified as combat service support personnel needed to support those combat brigades, even if Bush didn't allude to them initially. Since then, Petraeus has asked for another 2,200 military police to guard detainees caught as part of the security plan.
In addition, on March 10, Bush said he would send an additional 3,500 troops to Afghanistan as concerns mount about spring thaws bringing resurgent violence in the southern and eastern regions. In all last weekend, Bush announced an increase of at least 8,100 troops for both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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