Troops in Iraq say more would be better

Reuters/NY Times:

New Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked ordinary soldiers on the ground in Baghdad on Thursday for advice on fixing the war effort, and he received the same answer time and again -- bring in more American troops.

``Sir, I think we need to just keep doing what we're doing,'' Spc. Jason Glenn of Mount Grove, Missouri, told Gates over breakfast at Camp Victory.

``I really think we need more troops here. With more presence on the ground, more troops might hold them (the insurgents) off long enough to where we can get the Iraqi army trained up,'' Glenn said.

The soldier's views were echoed by others who sat down with Gates to talk about a war that both the defense secretary and President George W. Bush say the United States is not winning more than three years after the U.S.-led invasion.

``However you characterize it, it's not good enough,'' Gates told the soldiers about America's progress in the war.

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No soldier present said the American forces should be brought home, and none said current troop levels were adequate, as some commanders have argued.

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Contrast that advice with the Generals who still are reluctant to ask for more troops. There has been a tension in this area since the end of major combat operations. Field grade officers and below and the troops under them have long thought they needed more troops to accomplish the mission in Iraq. The Generals, particularly Abizaid have been reluctant to put more troops in because they thought the Iraqis would become too reliant on additional troops.

The question really is which is worse. Iraqi reliance may delay their taking responsibility, but the failure to suppress the enemy insurgency may mean they never have the opportunity to take full responsibility. I also think that having too few troops increases casualties. It has already caused us to have to pay for the same real estate more than once in Anbar province and has been even more costly in the loss of Iraqi allies which has made it more difficult to get their cooperation the next through the area.