Gen. Keane: Iraq's "A Choice to Lose"

Yesterday, on ABC's This Week, Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, discussed "http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2006/12/choosing_victory_a_p... target=_blank>Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success" in Iraq. Video of the exchange Keane had with the newly elected Cong. Joe Sestak, a retired vice admiral who advocates troop withdrawals, may be found here.

Gen. Keane on…

How the plan would work:

"Well, first of all, security is the dominating issue in Iraq. I mean, it is the necessary precondition to have political and economic success and it subsumes all the other issues. Now what we're talking about here is the security plan being part of a comprehensive strategy that uses all the other elements of national power, political, economic and diplomatic, but we want to talk about military here, we will. In terms of the strategy itself, it's a fundamental change in the mission. The mission, people are focusing on the surge of the troops, but the essence of it is we changed the mission to the security of the people in Baghdad. We've never taken that on as a military mission before. Our mission has been transition to the Iraqi security forces and we made some inadequate attempts to secure Baghdad twice in the past."

How the plan is different from past Baghdad operations:

"But when you look at what we did on the ground, we didn't do it that way. We cleared out the insurgents and the Shia death squads from the areas but never committed ourselves to phase two of the operation, which is significant, and that is to put a 24/7 force in the neighborhoods to protect the people and they do not go back to their bases at night. It is a security of the people that's the key to success…."

How many troops would be needed:

"It's about 25,000. And then in al-Anbar, the mission would not be the security of the people, it would be to keep the insurgents and the al Qaeda base off of Baghdad so they're not going to do a sideshow out there. And we would still focus on the enemy, not on the people. That would take an additional two Marine regiments out there, another 8,000 to 10,000."

How long it would take:

"Baghdad would probably take, to complete the mission militarily, to secure the people, would take well into the fall of the year. And then we would turn to al-Anbar with a different mission. We'd change the mission in al-Anbar then, for no longer as a supporting mission, it would be the main effort. That's probably the place we really probably wanted to start a couple of years ago but were never able to do it. The enemy made Baghdad the center of gravity, so we have no choice, we have to deal with that. And that would take another six to seven months, and that would probably go into '08, as well."

Why the plan would make a difference in Iraq:

"Listen, that argument we … [have] heard many times in this town is actually a choice to lose. Time is against us so our choice is, can we do something about this in the intervening year and make a difference and buy some time so that a political and diplomatic and economic strategy will work or do we just cut our losses as you say and walk away from it? … Of course it's going to make a difference if you go about it right. Most people don't realize what we didn't do militarily in the past. And what I was trying to explain to you, is this would be a security mission that we have never done. And you would go to the Shia neighborhoods and the Sunni mixed neighborhoods, there's 23 districts there, and you would secure those people, the Sunnis and the Shias. It gives Maliki then an opportunity to go to the Shia militias, to the Badacor, to Sadr and use that leverage that we are protecting the people here and get his people to stop their offensive operations and to turn defensive in Sadr City. And then we have a basis also, certainly we see the value of making this a regional issue. It has always been and getting other nations involved. The economic package to this is very important. It has two phases to it. The first one would be basic services while we're protecting the people. And then another economic package for enhanced quality of life services that would be tied to an incentive package in terms of their cooperation and their willingness to help us in turning over who the death squad members are and who the insurgents are."Whether a short-term troop surge would work: