Pentagon surge politics

Wall Street Journal Editorial:

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It's possible the surge has so degraded the insurgency -- both of the al Qaeda and Shiite varieties -- that the U.S. can reduce its troop presence to some undetermined level without inviting precisely the conditions that led to the surge in the first place. The withdrawal of one combat brigade from Iraq in December hasn't affected the stunning declines in insurgent attacks and Iraqi civilian deaths over the past year.

Then again, a spate of recent attacks -- including a suicide bombing Monday that left five GIs dead in Baghdad and a roadside bombing yesterday that killed 16 Iraqis -- is a reminder that the insurgency remains capable of doing great damage. An overly hasty withdrawal of U.S. forces would give it more opportunities to do so. It could also demoralize Iraq forces just when they are gaining confidence and need our help to "hold" the areas gained by the "clear, hold and build" strategy of the surge.

This ought to be apparent to Pentagon generals. Yet their rationale for troop withdrawals seems to have less to do with conditions in Iraq and more with fear that the war is putting a strain on the military as an institution. These are valid concerns. Lengthy and repeated combat deployments have imposed extraordinary burdens on service members and their families. The war in Iraq has also diverted scarce funds to combat operations rather than investment -- much of it long overdue -- in military modernization.

But these concerns are best dealt with by enlarging the size of the Army and Marine Corps and increasing spending on defense to between 5% and 6% of gross domestic product from the current 4.5% -- about where it was at the end of the Cold War. By contrast, we can think of few things that would "break" the military more completely -- in readiness, morale and deterrent power -- than to leave Iraq in defeat, or in conditions that would soon lead to a replay of what happened in Vietnam.

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President Bush has no intention of allowing the premature draw down of forces in Iraq. Clearly, the Democrat candidates for the Presidency do have such intentions. The internal debate at the Pentagon reflects the results of a mistake made in 2001 not to increase the size of the military. It would have been easier to do then and we would be reaping the benefits now. It is not too late to do the expansion and that should be the course that the brass should be pushing.

I suspect one reason for their reluctance is they would rather spend the money on hardware. That s certainly a concern of the Air Force, but the other branches have their own hardware ambitions. It is as if they do not comprehend how expensive it will be to lose in Iraq. It is not like we can just bring everyone home and stop the expense of the war. The war will go on and it will last longer and more Americans will be killed if we walk away from this fight. It will be far less costly in the long run to win in Iraq and deter others from pursuing an insurgency strategy.