No Mission No Surge

Remember when most of us respected Colin Powell? If anything, he came across as a stand up guy and you really didn't have doubts that what he told you was nothing but the truth, because he seemed to exude honesty and integrity. Well, that was until the whole "aluminum tubes" thing, and then he bailed out.
Here he is with Bob Schieffer on Face The Nation, December 17, 2006. I don't have doubts that was he's saying this time is true.

MR. POWELL: "Over the summer, the United States and Iraqi forces launched Operation Forward Together. Began in June, and then phase two began in August, with thousands of American troops going into Baghdad to try to stabilize the situation. They haven't stabilized the situation. So we have tried this surge of troops over the summer. I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purpose of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work. But if somebody proposes that additional troops be sent, if I was still chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, my first question to whoever's proposing it is what mission is it these troops ought to accomplish? Is it to secure Baghdad, in which case the American army isn't large enough to secure Baghdad, and we should not use our troops as policemen. It is to take over--is it to take over a certain section of Baghdad, is it to go after the insurgents? There needs to be a clear mission that these additional troops are going to be performing."

"...So before I would add any additional troops or recommend it to a commander in chief, I'd want to make sure we have a clear understanding of what it is they're going for, how long they're going for. And let's be clear about something else ...that gets a little confusing. There really are no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who're there there longer and escalating, or accelerating, the arrival of other troops."

"...I'm suggesting that what General Schoomaker said the other day, before a committee looking at the Reserve and National Guard, that the active Army is about broken. General Schoomaker is absolutely right, and all of my contacts within the Army suggest that the Army has a serious problem in the active force, and it's a problem that will spread into the Guard and Reserves: Backlog of equipment that is not being repaired, soldiers--especially officers and noncommissioned officers--going on repetitive tours. So if you surge now, you're going to keep troops who've already been kept there long even longer, and you're going to be bringing in troops from the United States who were going to be coming anyway, but perhaps a little bit later. And so that's how you surge. And that surge cannot be sustained. The current active Army is not large enough, and the Marine Corps is not large enough, for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform. And we need to let both the Army and the Marine Corps grow in size, in my military judgment."