Ricks Reveals: "Go Big, Go Long, Get Out" Are Iraq Options

By: E&P Staff In a catchy formulation that will probably stick, Thomas Ricks, reporter for The Washington Post and author of the bestselling book "Fiasco," reveals in a front-page story today that three leading options on Iraq, according to insiders, are "Go Big, Go Long and Get Out."

Go Big means send more troops now in an effort to turns things around. Go Long means shrinking only a bit in hopes that it will pan out in the end. Get Out needs no explanation.

The postelection debate over Iraq is intensifying as members of Congress from both parties pose remedies and the Bush administration hunts for answers. It was a busy weekend in this regard.

Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York proposed a military draft, which the administration has repeatedly said it doesn't need.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said more troops should be sent in and that the soldiers there now are "fighting and dying for a failed policy."

While in Indonesia Monday, Bush was asked about proposals by Sen. John McCain to send more troops to Iraq in an effort to stabilize the country. "I haven't made any decisions about troop increases or troop decreases, and won't until I hear from a variety of sources," Bush replied.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said troop withdrawals must begin within four to six months.

And a Pentagon review of Iraq has come up with three options -- injecting more troops into Iraq, shrinking the force but staying longer or pulling out, Ricks reported. The newspaper quoted senior defense officials as dubbing the three alternatives "Go big, go long and go home."

The secret military study was commissioned by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and comes as political and military leaders struggle with how to conduct a war that is increasingly unpopular, both in the United States and in occupied Iraq.

Ricks writes that an obstacle to "Go Long" is that "it runs counter to the impulse of many congressional Democrats to find a way to get out of Iraq quickly. Planners envision taking five to 10 more years to create a stable and competent Iraqi army. Because it wouldn't lead to a swift exit, some Democrats could criticize this option as a disguised version of 'staying the course.'

"On the other hand, the hybrid version of 'Go Long' may be remarkably close to the recommendation that the Iraq Study Group, led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). That group's findings, expected to be issued next month, are said to focus on changing the emphasis of U.S. military operations from combating the insurgency to training Iraqis, and also to find ways to increase security in Baghdad and bring neighboring countries into talks about stabilizing Iraq.

"The Pentagon group has given a thumbs-down to what it considered variants of withdrawal, such as pulling U.S. units out of the cities and keeping them in isolated enclaves, where they would not interact with the Iraqi population but would be available to combat major insurgent offensives and also to protect the government against coups."

"I believe the consequences of failure are catastrophic," said McCain. "It will spread to the region. You will see Iran more emboldened. Eventually, you could see Iran pose a greater threat to the state of Israel."

Taking the opposite tack, newly empowered Democrats pressed their case for a phased withdrawal of American forces.

They hope a blue-ribbon advisory panel led by Bush family friend and former Secretary of State James Baker and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, would propose a way ahead for Iraq, while making clear the U.S. military mission shouldn't last indefinitely.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he'd like to see the commission assert that U.S. troop commitments are not open-ended; propose a clear political road map for Iraq; and recommend engaging Iraq's neighbors in a political and diplomatic solution.

The United States should "begin to let the Iraqi leadership know we're not going to be staying," he said Monday on NBC's "Today" program.

"Over the next four months let them know we're going to start to phase out, force them to have to address the central issue. That is not how to stand up Iraqis, but how to get Iraqis to stand together," Biden said.

"The idea that we're going to have 140,000 troops in Iraq this time next year is just not reasonable," he said.

McCain: Fight terrorists in Iraq or fight them here

McCain, a front-running GOP presidential hopeful for 2008, said the U.S. must send an overwhelming number of troops to stabilize Iraq or face more attacks -- in the region and possibly on American soil.

"The consequences of failure are so severe that I will exhaust every possibility to try to fix this situation. Because it's not the end when American troops leave. The battleground shifts, and we'll be fighting them again," McCain said. "You read Zarqawi, and you read bin Laden. ... It's not just Iraq that they're interested in. It's the region, and then us." He was referring to Osama bin-Laden and the late al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

With about 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq more than 3 1/2 years into the war, the American military has strained to provide enough forces while allowing for adequate rest and retraining between deployments.

Rangel, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Sunday "there's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft." (Full story)

Rangel says he will introduce a bill next year requiring Americans to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18. He has said the all-volunteer military disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families.

"We must tell the Iraqis that we would begin, starting in four to six months, a phased reduction of our troops," said Sen. Levin the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In the absence of a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops, he said, Iraqis are "going to continue to have the false assumption that we are there in some kind of an open-ended way. And it is that assumption on their part that takes them off the hook."