The Los Angeles Times this morning has a large spread reporting on a private report coming to George W. Bush shortly from outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace calling for a troop reduction in Iraq sometime next year.  The Times even runs the sub-heading as,  

Advice by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs poses a potential clash with supporters of the buildup.

 When linked to the comments yesterday by Republican Senator John Warner and Democratic presidential candidates, the Times is saying this dissention in the general ranks, Pace and Petraeus, could be “awkward for Bush,” as though this were the first time in history that generals may have disagreed on anything important.  But the Times is incorrect to compare what Senator Warner said yesterday and what General Pace is reported to be working on today. 

Yesterday, I explained how ridiculous of a position it was for John Warner to “break ranks” with the President when he called for Mr. Bush to pick a number, any number, a token reduction in forces by Christmas to send a message to the Iraqi government that we’re not going to be there forever.  What is most silly about this logic is that Warner is assuming that there is an Iraqi in authority anywhere that doesn’t realize we’re not going to be there forever.  Even David Petraeus, the U.S. and coalition forces commander in Iraq, said the surge is not permanent and we cannot sustain a presence in Iraq on a large scale forever.  Picking a token number to try to prove a point is dumb when the point Warner’s trying to make is well known. But his criticism is vastly different than that of Peter Pace.  

General Pace is in a much different position than General Petraeus.  Petraeus’ job is to implement the surge and govern the military activities in that theater of operations.  Pace’s role is more of a big picture role, analyzing potential threats all over the globe, and calculating and predicting where, when and if military force might need to be used in the future, and how best to prepare, plan and equip for those threats.  By Pace allegedly saying in the Times story that he is going to report to the President that U.S. forces should be cut in half by next year, he is making that in the context that he wants the U.S. armed forces to be able to respond to other areas, possibly Iran, possibly others if necessary, a prospect that would be much harder to do with the current numbers in Iraq.  He is clearly not saying anything about Iraq failing or the surge failing, or Petraeus failing.   

In actuality, both Petraeus, in his report this September, and Pace may be right.  Petraues may try to claim that improvements on the ground in Iraq suggest that we keep the surge going for up to a year, and Pace may be correct that rotations are such that we need to begin the pulldown about the same time.  But in any case, that call belongs to one person, George W. Bush as the commander-in-chief.   

The National Intelligence Estimate that was released this week gives their assessment to events on the ground in Iraq since their last estimate in January.  The conclusion is that progress is marginally better than January, and that the surge should continue, because to alter the plan now would be to destroy any gains that have been made.  The estimate in January was a snapshot then, just as the one this week is now.  The net difference between January and now is a net marginally positive effect, but my assessment would be that if you had one estimate every quarter, it would have gone something like this.  January, disaster.  March, more of a disaster.  June, about the low point, but troops are beginning to flood the zone as the surge begins to be implemented.  Now, much more of an improvement from June.  If conditions on the ground continue at roughly the pace of the last three months from now until summer, we may very well be in a position to be able to safely reduce the amount of troops.  If the situation deteriorates, then we certainly reassess our position and strategy there. If things stay static, then it’s a tricky call, but again, Bush must then decide whether it’s still in our best interest to tread water with that many troops still in Iraq.  But the conditions on the ground support the view that things will continue to improve by the summer, giving options to begin to handover areas to a more stable local government or capable Iraq Security Force.  As for the political progress at the national lever, nature abhors a vacuum, so if the conditions on the ground continue to improve to the point where a central government becomes essential to take the next step, one will probably take shape, whether it includes al-Maliki or not.  

So before the L.A. Times tries to put Peter Pace in the same anti-war, defeatist column as the Democrats, maybe they might spend a little bit analyzing what his role is, and maybe look at the conditions on the ground and the trends for the future.