Abizaid rejects Dem's cut and run strategy

AP:

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East warned Congress Wednesday against setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying it would impede commanders in managing U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The assertion by Gen. John Abizaid seemed to put him at odds with some Democrats pressing the Bush administration to begin pulling out of Iraq.

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No kidding. While the Democrats have been hammering our strategy in Iraq as that of Bush or Rumsfeld, when confronted with the guy who is actually responsible for the strategy the Democrats continue to ignore the obvious consequences of their "strategy" of giving the Iraqis a deadline. As Abizaid made clear:

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In arguing against a timetable for troop withdrawals, Abizaid told the committee that he and other U.S. commanders need flexibility in managing U.S. forces and determining how and when to pass on responsibility to Iraqi forces.

"Specific timetables limit that flexibility," the general said.

Abizaid also said he believes U.S. troop levels, now at about 141,000, should stay steady but may have to rise temporarily to train and advise Iraqi military units. No reductions are adviseable until the Iraqi security forces become more capable of dealing with the insurgency, securing Baghdad and dealing with the Shiite militia problem, he said.

"Our troop posture needs to stay where it is," for the time being, he said.

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Abizaid said the situation had actually improved somewhat since he last testified in August. There still appears to me much focus on what is called "sectarian violence." The situation is more nuanced than that. The Sunnis are still attacking Shia non combatants, but that has been their m.o. for several months. What has been different in the last few months is that the Shia militias are finding Sunnis they think may be responsible for the bombings and they are torturing them for information on others who are responsible and in many cases they are killing them and dumping them on the sites of the Sunni bombing. While this vigilante justice is a demonstration of the breakdown of the rule of law in Iraq it is not necessarily a mindless tit for tat operation. The Shia weapon of choice for torture and killing appears to be an electric drill. My guess is they must be battery operated since the power grid is still too undependable to rely on a corded model.

Dave Price gets it right:

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The bedrock political strength of Bush's Iraq policy is that it rests on the advice of the military, in which public trust runs deep and wide, whatever they may think of the war itself or the decision to invade. Democrats may have no qualms about calling Bush incompetent, but witnessing how quickly they ran away from Kerry's perceived knock on U.S. troops, it's safe to assume they will be very wary about voicing similar opinions regarding the commanders on the ground in Iraq. That public view of the military as nearly sacrosanct is a major difference between now and Vietnam, and it puts the Dems in an awkward position when they advocate a position the military vehemently disagrees with.

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So are the Democrats going to follow the advice of the generals or are they going to pretend they are smarter than the generals? Well, they do generally think they are smarter than anyone who disagrees with them.