This Seymour Hersh article in The New Yorker points to considerable changes that are being proposed regarding how we should continue the fight in Iraq. The basic thrust of the piece is that some are calling for pulling some of the US troops out and instead relying more on US airpower.
I find this rather perplexing. In the first place, as the article makes clear it's not as if we're not already using a great deal of air power. We're regularly dropping huge amounts of ordnance. Secondly, doesn't this smack a bit of the Clinton-esque approach that President Bush has so often derided (like firing cruise missiles from afar). That's not saying that such policies can't be effective, but ... That leads me to my third concern - would it be effective? It doesn't strike me that a lot of the major targets would be best dealt with this way, though I admit to not having the information that would be relevant to determining that. Finally, what about civilian casualties? Sure technology and smart bombs have come a long way, but there's a lot more to an air war than that and this kind of turn would seem to raise the prospect of killing more innocent Iraqis than we are currently.
Now none of these concerns should necessarily preclude this policy move. It may be that all things considered it's our best hope for the future. But I'm far from sure of that. And the notion of letting the Iraqis call in the targets (which is discussed in the article), well, I have grave concerns about that. And that's putting it extremely mildly.
Posted by armand at November 28, 2005 10:12 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Iraq