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(In looking at my notes from yesterday, I took pages and pages, so I'm breaking this report up into smaller parts. Here is part one.)
Rochester: As promised yesterday, here is TAP's report on yesterday's roundtable discussion on the war in Iraq with Jon Powers (NY-26) and Eric Massa (NY-29) by Major General Eaton and Major General Batiste. The endorsements came during a series of National Security roundtable discussions in Lancaster and Rochester. I was at the Rochester meeting.
Jon Powers began the discussion where about 30 people had gathered, many of them veterans. "You have to separate the war from the warrior," Powers began. "I was in Iraq May 2003-July 2004...We don't want to talk about whether we should have been there. We want to talk about how to bring our troops home safely, securely and soon."
Eric Massa agreed, saying "Enough is enough. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging the hole."
Major General Paul Eaton stated that his role in the Iraq war was "to go in and rebuild the Iraqi armed forces." Eaton feels that the failure of the Bush Administration to properly plan for this war "set the stage for [his] disappointment and set the stage for [his] support of vets running for office."
Major General John Batiste, a Republican, commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq and left the Army to speak out beginning in April 2006. He and General Eaton were in Iraq at the same time and provided joint Congressional testimony on at least one occasion. Batiste echoed appreciation for freedom of speech and agreed with Eaton that the war planning for Iraq was "a complete failure" and that today "we lack a comprehensive national strategy to decisively deal with Islamic extremism." Batiste went on to say:
"These candidates represent the kind of leadership that we need. I'm a Republican, looking for elected leaders with absolute independence, integrity, and moral courage. I know that both of these candidates have these attributes in spades."
It's interesting to note that one of Eaton's sons was under Batiste's command in Iraq.
Massa then pointed out that "The [Bush] Administration is now using the word 'timetable' and at one point we were called 'unpatriotic' when we said that."
Powers then mentioned the book "Fiasco." He mentioned how those failures "affected us on the ground...From a platoon leader's perspective, I had a significant portion of the city of Baghdad, and still did not know what our mission was. [We were] driving through sewage. We wanted to turn the trash trucks back on (Saddam had shut them down). We submitted proposals to CPA (Coalition Provision Authority) and we kept getting denied. All we were asking for was $40/week to run the trucks. June passes, no money, July, August, September. The sewage is getting deeper, garbage is getting high, and the reason is they were trying to get an American company in for lots more money."
Batiste pointed out that "a successful strategy includes all elements of national power--the military is but one component that should be committed as a last resort. America goes to war to win, but that requires a synchronized strategy and degree of mobilization that to this day does not exist. Our intra-agency process in Washington was broken in 2003 and remains broken today. We continue to violate basic principles of war."
Batiste then touched on the challenges of fighting an insurgency in the context of defeating Islamic extremism. "It is all about changing the attitudes of the people of Iraq, giving them alternatives to the insurgency. To that end, a comprehensive national strategy with sufficient resources and unity of effort are fundamental. We have the best military in the world and a narrow window of opportunity to get it right in Iraq in 2008 and 2009. A real strategy needs to be developed fast that deals with Islamic extremism, with every department in our government as committed as the Department of Defense to our collective success. It is all about leadership."
(Part Two to follow tomorrow.)
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