“Surge”: Some Good News (Updated Again)

I just spent a cou­ple of min­utes on a White House con­fer­ence call on the troop increase. There wasn’t a ton of new infor­ma­tion, unsur­pris­ingly. But there was one, teeny-​​tiny encour­ag­ing tid­bit: at least some U.S. sol­diers are going to be rede­ployed from their mas­sive bases, and spend 24/​7 in Baghdad itself.
The city will be divided into 9 sec­tions. Each will get a brigade of 2500 Iraq troops. And joined to that brigade will be an American com­bat bat­tal­ion of 650 men. These peo­ple will live, full-​​time, “in the neigh­bor­hoods them­selves,” White House chief flack Tony Snow says. Unlike before, when U.S. troops would often take a ‘hood — and then head right back to their bases.
This is all in keep­ing with tra­di­tional coun­terin­sur­gency tac­tics. And moves like this met with some suc­cess in Tal Afar and Baquba, pre­vi­ously.
Those were smaller cities, how­ever. Baghdad is a city of six mil­lion. An extra 5,000 U.S. troops there full-​​time is nice. Is it really enough?
UPDATE 4:41 PM: “President Bush tonight is expected to announce plans to increase the per­ma­nent size of U.S. ground forces by as many as 90,000 uni­formed per­son­nel,” Inside Defense is report­ing.
UPDATE 4:53 PM: Here’s the AP’s bullet-​​point break­down of the President’s plan.
Total # of new troops: 21,500.
UPDATE 6:28 PM: OK, this is poten­tially inter­est­ing, too. “The rules of engage­ment gov­ern­ing where troops could and couldn’t go were severely restricted by pol­i­tics in Baghdad dur­ing pre­vi­ous oper­a­tions,” says a White House fact sheet. “Prime Minister Maliki has made clear that this is going to change. The extrem­ists will no longer have safe havens in Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi troops can­not enter.“
Also, this set of National Security Council slides — espe­cially #7, on the changed “key assump­tions” about Iraq — is, for this White House, almost jaw-​​dropping real­is­tic and head-​​headed.
UPDATE 7:23 PM: Check out MountainRunner, too.
UPDATE 8:37: Below the jump, advance text of the speech.

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EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY January 10, 2007
ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION
As Prepared for Delivery
Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a strug­gle that will deter­mine the direc­tion of the global war on ter­ror and our safety here at home. The new strat­egy I out­line tonight will change Americas course in Iraq, and help us suc­ceed in the fight against ter­ror.
When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 mil­lion Iraqis had cast their bal­lots for a uni­fied and demo­c­ra­tic nation. The elec­tions of 2005 were a stun­ning achieve­ment. We thought that these elec­tions would bring the Iraqis together and that as we trained Iraqi secu­rity forces, we could accom­plish our mis­sion with fewer American troops.
But in 2006, the oppo­site hap­pened. The vio­lence in Iraq par­tic­u­larly in Baghdad over­whelmed the polit­i­cal gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda ter­ror­ists and Sunni insur­gents rec­og­nized the mor­tal dan­ger that Iraqs elec­tions posed for their cause. And they responded with out­ra­geous acts of mur­der aimed at inno­cent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holi­est shrines in Shia Islam the Golden Mosque of Samarra in a cal­cu­lated effort to pro­voke Iraqs Shia pop­u­la­tion to retal­i­ate. Their strat­egy worked. Radical Shia ele­ments, some sup­ported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sec­tar­ian vio­lence that con­tin­ues today.
The sit­u­a­tion in Iraq is unac­cept­able to the American peo­ple and it is unac­cept­able to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done every­thing we have asked them to do. Where mis­takes have been made, the respon­si­bil­ity rests with me.
It is clear that we need to change our strat­egy in Iraq. So my national secu­rity team, mil­i­tary com­man­ders, and diplo­mats con­ducted a com­pre­hen­sive review. We con­sulted Members of Congress from both par­ties, allies abroad, and dis­tin­guished out­side experts. We ben­e­fited from the thought­ful rec­om­men­da­tions of the Iraq Study Group a bipar­ti­san panel led by for­mer Secretary of State James Baker and for­mer Congressman Lee Hamilton. In our dis­cus­sions, we all agreed that there is no magic for­mula for suc­cess in Iraq. And one mes­sage came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a dis­as­ter for the United States.
The con­se­quences of fail­ure are clear: Radical Islamic extrem­ists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a bet­ter posi­tion to top­ple mod­er­ate gov­ern­ments, cre­ate chaos in the region, and use oil rev­enues to fund their ambi­tions. Iran would be embold­ened in its pur­suit of nuclear weapons. Our ene­mies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American peo­ple. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extrem­ists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our peo­ple, America must suc­ceed in Iraq.
The most urgent pri­or­ity for suc­cess in Iraq is secu­rity, espe­cially in Baghdad. Eighty per­cent of Iraqs sec­tar­ian vio­lence occurs within 30 miles of the cap­i­tal. This vio­lence is split­ting Baghdad into sec­tar­ian enclaves, and shak­ing the con­fi­dence of all Iraqis. Only the Iraqis can end the sec­tar­ian vio­lence and secure their peo­ple. And their gov­ern­ment has put for­ward an aggres­sive plan to do it.
Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two prin­ci­pal rea­sons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neigh­bor­hoods that had been cleared of ter­ror­ists and insur­gents. And there were too many restric­tions on the troops we did have. Our mil­i­tary com­man­ders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mis­takes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.
Let me explain the main ele­ments of this effort: The Iraqi gov­ern­ment will appoint a mil­i­tary com­man­der and two deputy com­man­ders for their cap­i­tal. The Iraqi gov­ern­ment will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdads nine dis­tricts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades com­mit­ted to this effort along with local police. These Iraqi forces will oper­ate from local police sta­tions con­duct­ing patrols, set­ting up check­points, and going door-​​to-​​door to gain the trust of Baghdad res­i­dents.
This is a strong com­mit­ment. But for it to suc­ceed, our com­man­ders say the Iraqis will need our help. So America will change our strat­egy to help the Iraqis carry out their cam­paign to put down sec­tar­ian vio­lence and bring secu­rity to the peo­ple of Baghdad. This will require increas­ing American force lev­els. So I have com­mit­ted more than 20,000 addi­tional American troops to Iraq. The vast major­ity of them five brigades will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work along­side Iraqi units and be embed­ded in their for­ma­tions. Our troops will have a well-​​defined mis­sion: to help Iraqis clear and secure neigh­bor­hoods, to help them pro­tect the local pop­u­la­tion, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capa­ble of pro­vid­ing the secu­rity that Baghdad needs.
Many lis­ten­ing tonight will ask why this effort will suc­ceed when pre­vi­ous oper­a­tions to secure Baghdad did not. Here are the dif­fer­ences: In ear­lier oper­a­tions, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neigh­bor­hoods of ter­ror­ists and insur­gents but when our forces moved on to other tar­gets, the killers returned. This time, we will have the force lev­els we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In ear­lier oper­a­tions, polit­i­cal and sec­tar­ian inter­fer­ence pre­vented Iraqi and American forces from going into neigh­bor­hoods that are home to those fuel­ing the sec­tar­ian vio­lence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter these neigh­bor­hoods and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that polit­i­cal or sec­tar­ian inter­fer­ence will not be tol­er­ated.
I have made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraqs other lead­ers that Americas com­mit­ment is not open-​​ended. If the Iraqi gov­ern­ment does not fol­low through on its promises, it will lose the sup­port of the American peo­ple and it will lose the sup­port of the Iraqi peo­ple. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister under­stands this. Here is what he told his peo­ple just last week: The Baghdad secu­rity plan will not pro­vide a safe haven for any out­laws, regard­less of [their] sec­tar­ian or polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion.
This new strat­egy will not yield an imme­di­ate end to sui­cide bomb­ings, assas­si­na­tions, or IED attacks. Our ene­mies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our tele­vi­sion screens are filled with images of death and suf­fer­ing. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chas­ing down mur­der­ers, fewer brazen acts of ter­ror, and grow­ing trust and coop­er­a­tion from Baghdads res­i­dents. When this hap­pens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain con­fi­dence in their lead­ers, and the gov­ern­ment will have the breath­ing space it needs to make progress in other crit­i­cal areas. Most of Iraqs Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace and reduc­ing the vio­lence in Baghdad will help make rec­on­cil­i­a­tion pos­si­ble.
A suc­cess­ful strat­egy for Iraq goes beyond mil­i­tary oper­a­tions. Ordinary Iraqi cit­i­zens must see that mil­i­tary oper­a­tions are accom­pa­nied by vis­i­ble improve­ments in their neigh­bor­hoods and com­mu­ni­ties. So America will hold the Iraqi gov­ern­ment to the bench­marks it has announced.
To estab­lish its author­ity, the Iraqi gov­ern­ment plans to take respon­si­bil­ity for secu­rity in all of Iraqs provinces by November. To give every Iraqi cit­i­zen a stake in the coun­trys econ­omy, Iraq will pass leg­is­la­tion to share oil rev­enues among all Iraqis. To show that it is com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing a bet­ter life, the Iraqi gov­ern­ment will spend 10 bil­lion dol­lars of its own money on recon­struc­tion and infra­struc­ture projects that will cre­ate new jobs. To empower local lead­ers, Iraqis plan to hold provin­cial elec­tions later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-​​enter their nations polit­i­cal life, the gov­ern­ment will reform de-​​Baathification laws and estab­lish a fair process for con­sid­er­ing amend­ments to Iraqs con­sti­tu­tion.
America will change our approach to help the Iraqi gov­ern­ment as it works to meet these bench­marks. In keep­ing with the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embed­ding of American advis­ers in Iraqi Army units and part­ner a Coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army divi­sion. We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-​​equipped Army and we will accel­er­ate the train­ing of Iraqi forces, which remains the essen­tial U.S. secu­rity mis­sion in Iraq. We will give our com­man­ders and civil­ians greater flex­i­bil­ity to spend funds for eco­nomic assis­tance. We will dou­ble the num­ber of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams bring together mil­i­tary and civil­ian experts to help local Iraqi com­mu­ni­ties pur­sue rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, strengthen mod­er­ates, and speed the tran­si­tion to Iraqi self reliance. And Secretary Rice will soon appoint a recon­struc­tion coor­di­na­tor in Baghdad to ensure bet­ter results for eco­nomic assis­tance being spent in Iraq.
As we make these changes, we will con­tinue to pur­sue al Qaeda and for­eign fight­ers. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most vio­lent area of Iraq out­side the cap­i­tal. A cap­tured al Qaeda doc­u­ment describes the ter­ror­ists plan to infil­trate and seize con­trol of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of tak­ing down Iraqs democ­racy, build­ing a rad­i­cal Islamic empire, and launch­ing new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.
Our mil­i­tary forces in Anbar are killing and cap­tur­ing al Qaeda lead­ers and pro­tect­ing the local pop­u­la­tion. Recently, local tribal lead­ers have begun to show their will­ing­ness to take on al Qaeda. As a result, our com­man­ders believe we have an oppor­tu­nity to deal a seri­ous blow to the ter­ror­ists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to step up the pres­sure on the ter­ror­ists. Americas men and women in uni­form took away al Qaedas safe haven in Afghanistan and we will not allow them to re-​​establish it in Iraq.
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defend­ing its ter­ri­to­r­ial integrity and sta­bi­liz­ing the region in the face of the extrem­ist chal­lenge. This begins with address­ing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allow­ing ter­ror­ists and insur­gents to use their ter­ri­tory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is pro­vid­ing mate­r­ial sup­port for attacks on American troops. We will dis­rupt the attacks on our forces. We will inter­rupt the flow of sup­port from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the net­works pro­vid­ing advanced weaponry and train­ing to our ene­mies in Iraq.
We are also tak­ing other steps to bol­ster the secu­rity of Iraq and pro­tect American inter­ests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deploy­ment of an addi­tional car­rier strike group to the region. We will expand intel­li­gence shar­ing and deploy Patriot air defense sys­tems to reas­sure our friends and allies. We will work with the gov­ern­ments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve prob­lems along their bor­der. And we will work with oth­ers to pre­vent Iran from gain­ing nuclear weapons and dom­i­nat­ing the region.
We will use Americas full diplo­matic resources to rally sup­port for Iraq from nations through­out the Middle East. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to under­stand that an American defeat in Iraq would cre­ate a new sanc­tu­ary for extrem­ists and a strate­gic threat to their sur­vival. These nations have a stake in a suc­cess­ful Iraq that is at peace with its neigh­bors and they must step up their sup­port for Iraqs unity gov­ern­ment. We endorse the Iraqi gov­ern­ments call to final­ize an International Compact that will bring new eco­nomic assis­tance in exchange for greater eco­nomic reform. And on Friday, Secretary Rice will leave for the region to build sup­port for Iraq, and con­tinue the urgent diplo­macy required to help bring peace to the Middle East.
The chal­lenge play­ing out across the broader Middle East is more than a mil­i­tary con­flict. It is the deci­sive ide­o­log­i­cal strug­gle of our time. On one side are those who believe in free­dom and mod­er­a­tion. On the other side are extrem­ists who kill the inno­cent, and have declared their inten­tion to destroy our way of life. In the long run, the most real­is­tic way to pro­tect the American peo­ple is to pro­vide a hope­ful alter­na­tive to the hate­ful ide­ol­ogy of the enemy by advanc­ing lib­erty across a trou­bled region. It is in the inter­ests of the United States to stand with the brave men and women who are risk­ing their lives to claim their free­dom and help them as they work to raise up just and hope­ful soci­eties across the Middle East.
From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, mil­lions of ordi­nary peo­ple are sick of the vio­lence, and want a future of peace and oppor­tu­nity for their chil­dren. And they are look­ing at Iraq. They want to know: Will America with­draw and yield the future of that coun­try to the extrem­ists or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for free­dom?
The changes I have out­lined tonight are aimed at ensur­ing the sur­vival of a young democ­racy that is fight­ing for its life in a part of the world of enor­mous impor­tance to American secu­rity. Let me be clear: The ter­ror­ists and insur­gents in Iraq are with­out con­science, and they will make the year ahead bloody and vio­lent. Even if our new strat­egy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of vio­lence will con­tinue and we must expect more Iraqi and American casu­al­ties. The ques­tion is whether our new strat­egy will bring us closer to suc­cess. I believe that it will.
Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grand­fa­thers achieved. There will be no sur­ren­der cer­e­mony on the deck of a bat­tle­ship. But vic­tory in Iraq will bring some­thing new in the Arab world a func­tion­ing democ­racy that polices its ter­ri­tory, upholds the rule of law, respects fun­da­men­tal human lib­er­ties, and answers to its peo­ple. A demo­c­ra­tic Iraq will not be per­fect. But it will be a coun­try that fights ter­ror­ists instead of har­bor­ing them and it will help bring a future of peace and secu­rity for our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.
Our new approach comes after con­sul­ta­tions with Congress about the dif­fer­ent courses we could take in Iraq. Many are con­cerned that the Iraqis are becom­ing too depen­dent on the United States and there­fore, our pol­icy should focus on pro­tect­ing Iraqs bor­ders and hunt­ing down al Qaeda. Their solu­tion is to scale back Americas efforts in Baghdad or announce the phased with­drawal of our com­bat forces. We care­fully con­sid­ered these pro­pos­als. And we con­cluded that to step back now would force a col­lapse of the Iraqi gov­ern­ment, tear that coun­try apart, and result in mass killings on an unimag­in­able scale. Such a sce­nario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and con­front an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our sup­port at this cru­cial moment, and help the Iraqis break the cur­rent cycle of vio­lence, we can has­ten the day our troops begin com­ing home.
In the days ahead, my national secu­rity team will fully brief Congress on our new strat­egy. If Members have improve­ments that can be made, we will make them. If cir­cum­stances change, we will adjust. Honorable peo­ple have dif­fer­ent views, and they will voice their crit­i­cisms. It is fair to hold our views up to scrutiny. And all involved have a respon­si­bil­ity to explain how the path they pro­pose would be more likely to suc­ceed.
Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key mem­bers of Congress, we will form a new, bipar­ti­san work­ing group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on ter­ror. This group will meet reg­u­larly with me and my Administration, and it will help strengthen our rela­tion­ship with Congress. We can begin by work­ing together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st cen­tury. We also need to exam­ine ways to mobi­lize tal­ented American civil­ians to deploy over­seas where they can help build demo­c­ra­tic insti­tu­tions in com­mu­ni­ties and nations recov­er­ing from war and tyranny.
In these dan­ger­ous times, the United States is blessed to have extra­or­di­nary and self­less men and women will­ing to step for­ward and defend us. These young Americans under­stand that our cause in Iraq is noble and nec­es­sary and that the advance of free­dom is the call­ing of our time. They serve far from their fam­i­lies, who make the quiet sac­ri­fices of lonely hol­i­days and empty chairs at the din­ner table. They have watched their com­rades give their lives to ensure our lib­erty. We mourn the loss of every fallen American and we owe it to them to build a future wor­thy of their sac­ri­fice.
Fellow cit­i­zens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sac­ri­fice, and resolve. It can be tempt­ing to think that America can put aside the bur­dens of free­dom. Yet times of test­ing reveal the char­ac­ter of a Nation. And through­out our his­tory, Americans have always defied the pes­simists and seen our faith in free­dom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new strug­gle that will set the course for a new cen­tury. We can and we will pre­vail.
We go for­ward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these try­ing hours. Thank you and good night.
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