Blue Spot

Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

The Arizona senator, who advocated the surge for years before the Bush administration employed it, says the resulting reduction in violence is proof it worked with progress on 15 of 18 political benchmarks and Obama's plan to withdraw troops by now would have resulted in surrender.

When President Bush ordered the surge in January, 2007, Obama said, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he acknowledged progress, but maintained his position that political progress was lacking.

Tuesday, while Obama gave a speech on foreign policy, the New York Daily News was first to notice the removal of parts of Obama's campaign site listing the Iraq troop surge as part of "The Problem." An Obama spokeswoman said it was just part of an "update" to "reflect changes in current events," as our colleague Frank James notes in the Swamp. The update includes a new section on the rise of al-Qaeda violence in Afghanistan.

But some might see the updating as part of Obama's skip to the political center now that he's secured the Democratic nomination. "Today," McCain said Tuesday, "we know Sen. Obama was wrong" to oppose the troop surge.

An old quote of Obama's criticizing the "rash war," which helped him with the left wing of his party and helped differentiate his stand from that of Sen. Hillary Clinton, a primary opponent who voted for the use of force in Iraq, has been replaced on his site by one saying that ending the Iraq war will make America safer. That's more of a general election message.

Labels: Iraq War, McCain, Obama, Surge strategy, Troops

From americanprogress.org/issues/security/iraq

...But other military leaders who are looking at the larger national security picture need to be consulted. They know well how maintaining an average of 130,000 troops in Iraq over the last five years has not only decimated our ground forces, it also has compromised our security interests around the globe.

"The Army is out of balance," Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. told the House Armed Services Committee last fall. That's a polite way of saying it's broken. Casey, who is responsible for the Army's overall health, is rightfully concerned.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, echoed Casey's unease. In January, Mullen told the Marine Corps Times that there was reserve capacity in the Navy and Air Force but that ground troops were a different story. "Clearly, if we had to do something with our ground forces, a significant substitute would be a big challenge," he said. Mullen's predecessor, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, also has expressed his discomfort with our ability to respond to other crises. Before leaving his post last October, Pace, stated that the troop commitment to Iraq would "make a large difference in our ability to be prepared for unforeseen contingencies" in the region and elsewhere.

A small clip of a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, March 11, 2008. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) on fraud, waste and courruption in Iraq.

Labels: corruption, Iraq War, Military secrets, Oil, Senate, Troops

Labels: Dissent, GOP Hypocrisy, Troops

On The Bill Moyers Journal, troops on the ground contradict White House rhetoric regarding success.

Labels: Iraq War, Troops