Another Report on this Debacle

Our own Defense Department’s think tank releases a report. McClatchy picks it up. This is the opening line:

"Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a
major war and a major debacle," says the report's opening line.

They go on.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins,
a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with
other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in
prewar preparations.

[Snip]

The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs,
with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in
Iraq have diverted "manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers"
from "all other efforts in the war on terror" and severely strained the U.S.
armed forces.

"Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there
(in Iraq) were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become,
at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to
expand its influence throughout the Middle East," the report
continued.

The addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq last year to
halt the country's descent into all-out civil war has improved security, but not
enough to ensure that the country emerges as a stable democracy at peace with
its neighbors, the report said.

"Despite impressive progress in
security, the outcome of the war is in doubt," said the report. "Strong
majorities of both Iraqis and Americans favor some sort of U.S. withdrawal.
Intelligence analysts, however, remind us that the only thing worse than an Iraq
with an American army may be an Iraq after a rapid withdrawal of that
army."

"For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a
'must win,' but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David
Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a 'can't win.'"

Anything you’ve read so far that you didn’t know?

I wish reports like these mattered. If someone is a “defeatist” in the face of a conflict we “can’t win”, doesn’t that make her/him a pragmatist?

You can download the entire report here.