reality-based educator

Add a whole bunch of retired generals who think Bush's surge plan is worthless:

A panel of retired generals told a United States Senate committee today that sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq will do little to solve the underlying political problems in the country.

“Too little and too late,” is the way Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, a former chief of the Central Command, described the effort to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The additional troops are intended to help pacify Baghdad and a restive province, but General Hoar said American leaders had failed to understand the political forces at work in the country. “The solution is political, not military,” he said.

“A fool’s errand,” was the judgment of Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who commanded troops in the first Gulf War. He said other countries had concluded that the effort in Iraq was not succeeding, noting that “our allies are leaving us and will be gone by summer.”

...

The American effort in Iraq has gone badly because the United States did not understand the consequences of deposing Saddam Hussein, said Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, a former director of the National Security Agency. He said the principal beneficiary of the war was Iran and Al Qaeda, not the United States.

“There is no way to win a war that is not in your interests,” he said.

A fool's errand pursued by the biggest fool to ever inhabit the White House - and yet it is going to proceed despite the opposition of the Joint Chiefs, the contingent of retired generals, Colin Powell, at least 12 Senate Republicans, the entire Democratic Party and 60%-70% of the American public.

Bush better hope he gets even a small bit of stability in Baghdad out of this surge plan. Because if he doesn't, Republicans in Washington, the ones who are now worried that the 2006 election debacle is going to make 2008 look like 1994, are going to eat him alive.