Thursday, September 11, 2008
Surge or Surveillance?
About a week old, but here's a link to a description of Bob Woodward's new book. Note two things-- first, the US apparently spied heavily on the new Iraqi administration, and second, Woodward claims heavy surveillance in general is more responsible than the troop surge for the decline in violence in Iraq recently.
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2 comments:
I have a hard time believing that the spying on the Iraqi administration is primarily responsible for the recent success and diminished violence. Even if it was the primary reason, that's a good thing, yes?
Intelligence and surveillance is vastly important, I wouldn't dream of disputing that. But what intelligence was to be gathered from Maliki and his administration that would somehow be the primary cause of stemming the violence? That seems like quite the gap to jump to me.
History seems to me to be on the side of the surge. With all due respect to Woodward, I think the troops and the "surge" are still the primary reason this war has turned around.
On this...I must agree with Nic. My dad was part of the initial forces sent to Iraq in 2003. Even then, after the Mission Accomplished debacle, he was saying they didn't have enough troops on the ground. He came back, safe and sound, but we did lose his commanding officer in April to indirect fire when he went back to Baghdad.
So it seems like to me...as broadcasting student...this might be a load of hogwash.
But then again, if this might be true, is he saying that people within the Iraqi administration were orchestrating the insurgency and the surveillance was used to "head them off at the pass" so to speak?
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