For weeks, in anticipation of Sen. Barack Obama's foreign tour including stops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the McCain campaign and others on the right have been fervently pushing to get the senator who, opposed the war from its outset, to admit the success of George Bush's (or Sen. McCain's, depending on who you're asking) troops "surge."
In a recent interview conducted in Jordan, Katie Couric pushed Sen. Obama several times to provide the sound byte everyone has been waiting for.
Sen. Obama, rather than bicker about the success of any particular tactics, cooly answered the question in terms of National Security priorities, and also suggested several factors might have led to the welcomed conditions in Iraq,
Couric: But do you not give the surge any credit for reducing violence in Iraq?
Obama: No, no … of course I have. There is no doubt that the extraordinary work of our U.S. forces has contributed to a lessening of the violence, just as making sure that the Sadr militia stood down or the fact that the Sunni tribes decided to flip and work with us instead of with al-Qaeda - something that we hadn't anticipated happening.The boiling debate has come to a simmer as Sen. John McCain, operating inside of a proverbial surge 'box,' revealed to Ms. Couric later that same evening what many consider to be a lack of understanding or reckless dismissal of important facts while explaining how Sen. Obama was so wrong in his opposition to the surge.
Couric: Sen. Obama says,...that there might have been improved security even
without the surge. What's your response to that?McCain: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a
false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic)
was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we
were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the
Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history.As it turns out, history disputes his account. For a day anyway. And then, the senator from tepid Arizona
clarified his previous statement with something many of us were unaware of (or able to comprehend):
McCain: "Colonel McFarland, in Anbar province, McCain said, 'had already
initiated that strategy in Ramadi by going in and clearing and holding
in certain places.' That is a counter-insurgency. And he told me at that
time that he believed that that strategy, which is quote the surge,
part of the surge, would be, would be, successful. So then, of course,
it was very clear that we needed additional troops in order to carry
out this insurgency. Prior to that -- counter insurgency. Prior to that
they had been going into places, killing people or not killing people,
and then withdrawing. And the new counter-insurgency, the surge,
entailed going in and clearing and holding, which Colonel McFarland had
already started doing. And then of course, later on, there were
additional troops, and General Petraeus said that the surge would not
have worked, and the Anbar Awakening would not have taken place,
successfully, if they hadn’t had an increase in the number of troops."
"So I’m not sure frankly that people really understand that a
surge is part of counter-insurgency strategy which means going in,
clearing, holding, building a better life, providing services to the
people. And then clearly a part of that, an important part of it, was
additional troops to help insure the safety of the sheiks, to gain
control of Ramadi, which was a very bloody fight, and then the surge
would continue to succeed as a counter-insurgency."
Got it?
I think it safe for Sen. Obama to 'admit' the surge has been a success, after all it's the "Surge, part of the 'Surge!"
