California Conservative

That’s essentially what the difference is between the ISG report and facts from Iraq. Jed Babbin does his usual masterful job of explaining the actual facts on the ground in this article. Here’s Mr. Babbin’s opinion of the ISG’s assumptions:

There is simply no evidence to support the ISG’s assertion that both Iran and Syria have an interest in a stable and peaceful Iraq that is not torn apart by sectarian violence. As I wrote earlier this week, each of those nations, Syria, by running a jihadi welcome wagon to help terrorists coming from all over the world to transit through Syria into Iraq and Iran by funding, arming and providing every other support of Shia terrorist organizations in Iraq, have demonstrated convincingly that they want an unstable Iraq to fall prey to their proxy forces.

As I wrote earlier this week, I suspect that the ISG’s recommendations were based more on empty rhetoric than on reality. The problem with the ISG’s recommendations is that they’re political in nature. Their recommendations were never meant to propel us to victory. Their goal was to provide President Bush with political cover to rationalize away defeat. To his credit, President Bush wasn’t interested in either political cover or defeat.

Here’s where ISG’s observations are shredded:

In Iraq last December, I learned that the deadliest type of “IED” (improvised explosive device) that is the insurgents’ most effective weapon against our troops is a very sophisticated bomb. It compares to the 2002-vintage crude roadside bomb in the same way a Porsche compares to a Model-A Ford. It’s called the “explosively-formed penetrator” (”EFP” in the inevitable Pentagon acronym.) A shaped explosive charge compresses a projectile and launches it with enough force to penetrate the armor of any vehicle, even a tank. It’s made in only one place: Iran.
In one of the Tuesday briefings, I asked one of the senior military leaders presenting it whether there had been a measurable change in the numbers of EFPs coming into Iraq in 2006. He said there had been a “significant increase” in the number. Iran is clearly raising the pressure on us to leave Iraq by doing its best to increase American casualties.

In other words, the ISG’s saying that Iran and Syria were both interested in helping stabilize Iraq was utter nonsense. Frankly, everyone in Washington knew it was pure BS (B as in Barbra, S as in Streisand). This information straight from the Pentagon tells the attentive part of the world that the ISG’s claims are nonsense. As far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t happen to a more useless report. Good riddance.

Technorati Tags: Iraq Study Group, James Baker, Revolutionary Guard, Syria

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 1:29 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq, W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.