Ed Morrissey at Hot Air writes that Senator Obama's plan as outlined on his website for a withdrawal from Iraq in 16 months is a logistical impossibility and that the Senator is telling us something important about his lack of understanding of matters military by proposing it. Citing this ABC News report Morrissey writes:
This is the kind of information that policy makers usually get before formulating policy. We can rotate troops out of Iraq on the kind of timetable Obama suggests, but we'd have to leave all of our heavy equipment in Iraq. Unless Obama plans some kind of nationwide garage sale, that would be a rather large loss for the American military in material as well as making our exit look more like Dunkirk.
Obviously, Obama didn't have any awareness of logistics when he made this proposal - and that's the point. His lack of experience, combined with a hubris that he has consistently shown on the campaign trail, makes clear that he is in way over his head at this point of his career. He has no sense of military policy at all, and got the biggest call of the war - the surge - completely wrong. Yet he insists that he's ready to lead this nation's military during a time of war as Commander in Chief?
The troops in the field have strong feelings about premature withdrawal under any circumstances. As one soldier put it, pointing to his bulletproof vest, he doesn't want his children having to wear the same gear in Iraq in 30 years because we (once again) bugged out before the job was finished. When Obama visits Iraq this summer, he will undoubtedly hear plenty of that sentiment - but they will also include a primer on logistics that Obama should have requested long before he started making promises about the pace of withdrawal.
Here's a video of the ABC News reporter on Good Morning America:
Morrissey concludes by asking that if casualties in Iraq have dropped to effectively zero by the time Barack takes office what would be the hurry?
Good question. Here's mine: When the anti-war folks realize that many of the combat brigades that will leave Iraq are going to be redeployed to Afghanistan are they still going to insist that they should be pulled out of Iraq? Haven't many of those who have opposed the Iraq venture been saying all along that we should be in Afghanistan hunting down Osama bin Laden? It'll be interesting to see what they have to say once it appears that their words will be heeded.
RLC