I had a few problems with tonight's speech by our great neighbor's commander-in-chief.

Allow me to address them (I'm quoting from a transcript released by the Office of the White House Press Secretary):

Dubya:

Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations.

But Iraq wasn't a hotbed of Islamist terror before the United States invaded and occupied the country.

Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden  were hardly pals.

Saddam did make cash payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers, but they weren't blowing themselves up for his money. The death of Arafat has done more to advance the peace process in Israel than the overthrowal of Saddam's regime.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: "This Third World War … is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

Again, George, you made it that way. Now that the war is on, you have to win it, but framing it as though you had to invade because it was a nest of terrorist rats that needed to be cleaned out by the Great American War Machine is simply wrong.

Now, are there enough troops to accomplish victory?

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don't you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever — when we are in fact working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters — the sober judgment of our military leaders.

For a rebuttal to that, read this Paul Krugman column I've excerpted.

To summarize, a former U.S. Army commander named John Riggs was forced into retirement at a reduced rank. Why? He publicly contradicted U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by saying the U.S. military was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Krugman cited an LAT story that had one marine officer saying there weren't enough troops on the ground in Iraq.

He could have also cited this Sept.-Oct. 2004 Foreign Affairs article by Larry Diamond:

In truth, around 300,000 troops might have been enough to make Iraq largely secure after the war. But doing so would also have required different kinds of troops, with different rules of engagement. The coalition should have deployed vastly more military police and other troops trained for urban patrols, crowd control, civil reconstruction, and peace maintenance and enforcement. Tens of thousands of soldiers with sophisticated monitoring equipment should have been posted along the borders with Syria and Iran to intercept the flows of foreign terrorists, Iranian intelligence agents, money, and weapons.

But Washington failed to take such steps, for the same reasons it decided to occupy Iraq with a relatively light force: hubris and ideology. ...

To put that 300,000 number into context, there's currently about 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

But Krugman also makes this point:

Back in September 2003 a report by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the size of the U.S. force in Iraq would have to start shrinking rapidly in the spring of 2004 if the Army wanted to "maintain training and readiness levels, limit family separation and involuntary mobilization, and retain high-quality personnel."

The U.S. hasn't done so. While they might not have enough troops on the ground, it seems they don't have the capacity  to add troops without further stressing the military.

And while that's going on, the various branches of the armed forces are having a harder and harder time meeting their recruiting targets.

No matter, because a big part of the plan is training Iraqi troops to replace the U.S. ones:

Finally, we have continued our efforts to equip and train Iraqi Security Forces. We’ve made gains in both the number and quality of those forces. Today Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions. Iraqi forces have fought bravely — helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf, Samarra, Fallujah, and Mosul. And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti-terrorist campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning — which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected insurgents. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended by their own countrymen — and we are helping Iraqis assume those duties.

Here's an excerpt from a March 29, 2005 Christian Science Monitor article:

Pentagon officials have long said that any prospects for withdrawal of large numbers of US troops depend on the presence of indigenous units capable of taking their place. Today there are 145,000 Iraqi security personnel, organized into 52 army, and 44 police battalions, Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey told a Pentagon briefing last Wednesday.

These forces operate across Iraq, both with US troops and independently, said Sec. Harvey. "As proof of their growing capability, an Iraqi brigade recently assumed responsibility for a large portion of Baghdad, a significant milestone in the history of the new Iraqi army," he said.

But critics have long been wary of such glowing reports about Iraqi capability. They point to past instances in which local troops abandoned their posts, or refused to fight. And past reports on troops numbers have indeed proved overly optimistic. "Data on the status of Iraqi security forces is unreliable and provides limited information on their capabilities," said Joseph Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the US Government Accountability Office, at a House hearing on March 14.

In April of 2004, for instance, the Defense Department estimated that 206,000 Iraqi security forces were in place. But that number simply reflected personnel on the payroll - many of whom were either administrative officials, or otherwise unprepared to fight. So a year ago the Pentagon revised its Iraqi force figure downward, to 132,000.

By September of 2004, the number had crept back up to 160,000. But further investigation proved that this figure included substantial numbers of people who protect facilities - in essence, night watchmen. In addition, some trained forces did not have equipment rendering them able to fight.

So last fall the number was revised downward again, to 90,000, Rear Adm. William Sullivan, Vice Director for Strategic Plans and Policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House hearing. "We are just now beginning ... a qualitative assessment of how the various Iraqi security forces are doing, modeling it after the kinds of systems we use for our own military to measure unit readiness," said Adm. Sullivan.

Yet there may still be some flaws in the system, according to critics. Take the current estimate of 142,000 trained and equipped Iraqi troops.

This figure includes no adjustment for Iraqi military forces that may be absent without leave - a continuing problem in a nation where insurgents attempt to intimidate troops into leaving.

And even the best Iraqi units are nowhere near as capable as their U.S. counterparts.

It would appear U.S. troops are stuck where they are for some time to come.

An excerpt from a June 26 NYT story:

"The insurgency will be put down by the Iraqi people over time," Mr. Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday." "It won't be won by the coalition forces." He added that "insurgencies tend to go on 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 years." And violence, he said, might increase ahead of national elections set for December.

But Mr. Rumsfeld expressed nothing but certainty about the final outcome: The insurgents, he said, were "losers, and they're going to lose."

Mr. Rumsfeld's appearances on three television programs, and the appearances of Gen. John Abizaid, the military commander responsible for Afghanistan and Iraq, on two other programs seemed intended to lay the groundwork for a major prime-time speech on Tuesday by President Bush. Both Mr. Rumsfeld and General Abizaid sought to sound reassuring tones, while preparing the public for a long and difficult struggle.

Now, that leads to the burning question on a lot of people's lips, which is: When does the U.S. start to disengage?

Dubya sez:

I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible. So do I. Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis — who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. It would send the wrong message to our troops — who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy — who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out.We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed — and not a day longer.

I'm trying to find a (free :) ) copy of the actual Sunday Times of London story about meetings with insurgents, but I believe there was talk with those Sunni insurgents about how long U.S. soldiers would be there.

Personally, telling the insurgents you're willing to set a timetable for withdrawal if they'll commit to disbanding and integrating into the political mainstream might actually work.

My understanding, sketchy though it may be, is that the U.S. presence in Iraq is what's driving much of the insurgent activity. Winding down the occupation as part of a political solution might help end the insurgency just that much quicker.

Finally, was the word 'oil' used anywhere in that speech, in any context? Thought not.