politburo diktat 2.0

Michale Ware: Commanders privately express needing 3X more troops

Privately, off line, what commanders, again, from Baghdad to Ramadi, will tell you is that they need at least three times as many troops as they currently have there now, be that Iraqi and American or, even better, just three times as many as American troops. There’s an area there north of the Euphrates River that is used by al Qaeda’s top leadership that Osama bin Laden himself points to. It’s the size of New Hampshire.

You have only a few hundred American troops there. They can do nothing to hamper al Qaeda’s leadership in that area.

I was a piker with my 80,000; I defer to Bloodspite’s insight.

Speaking with Wolf Blitzer, Ware also said, “America, … in terms of fighting al Qaeda here in Iraq, is not committing to the fight.”

CNN correspondent Michael Ware has just returned from Ramadi, in Anbar province. He has been interviewed on CNN, and two transcripts are now available. Longer excerpts after the jump.

Question for commenters: What’s going on here? Do we accept Ware’s reportage? Or do we attribute it to MSM bias? Most likely we accept that he really went to Ramadi … and then what? He deliberately slanted his story to be as negative as possible, to damage George Bush?

Interview with Miles O’Brien:

MILES O’BRIEN: CNN’s Michael Ware just got back from being embedded with U.S. forces in the western Iraqi town of Ramadi. Ramadi is within the so- called Sunni Triangle. Insurgent activity there remains strong. Gun battles are a daily occurrence. He joins us now from Baghdad.

MICHAEL WARE: In Ramadi, in western Al Anbar province, we see what can only be described as a black hole in President Bush’s global war on terror. As the president is going through his series of speeches to reassure the American people and to inform them about the success and the progress of his war on terror, there in Al Anbar we saw that al Qaeda at its very heart has been found, identified, yet is not being struck at.

In one of his speeches last week, the president referred to Osama bin Laden and his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri. They make it very clear that Iraq is the centerpiece of their war against America, and that within that centerpiece of Iraq it is Al Anbar, it is Ramadi which is the toe hole from which they will build their base. What we know is that Al Qaeda in Iraq uses this area as its headquarters. This is where its leaders hide, move, plan. Yet, what is happening? America does not have enough troops to send out there.

Al Qaeda is almost untouched in its area of operations, and in the city of Ramadi itself, al Qaeda fighters are constantly attacking U.S. troops. Brigades sent to Ramadi are losing, on average, 100 American soldiers and Marines every year. And we don’t see that abating.

So, here’s the heart of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and there’s simply not enough troops and no strategy to combat it.

M. O’BRIEN: Michael, you have talked to the people on the ground there. I’m sure they don’t say it for the record, but how many troops do they think need in order to get a hold of this problem?

WARE: Well, officially, from Baghdad to Ramadi, the response you will get from American commanders is that we have an appropriate level of force to do what we have to do within the confines of our mission. However, the key term that all of them use is “economy of force.”

They say that we are applying an economy of force mission. That in itself is an admission that they don’t have the full number of troops that they need to do what actually has to be done.

Privately, off line, what commanders, again, from Baghdad to Ramadi, will tell you is that they need at least three times as many troops as they currently have there now, be that Iraqi and American or, even better, just three times as many as American troops. I mean, there’s an area there north of the Euphrates River that is used by al Qaeda’s top leadership that Osama bin Laden himself points to. It’s the size of New Hampshire.

You have only a few hundred American troops there. They can do nothing to hamper al Qaeda’s leadership in that area.

M. O’BRIEN: And a final thought here. To what extent are these al Qaeda leaders in cahoots with the homegrown insurgency? And if there is a relationship, who is taking orders from whom?

WARE: Well, this is one of the most fascinating things about it. Since the inception of this war, we have seen al Qaeda global jihad introduced to a country where it never existed. And like a cancer, once one cell appears, it begins to metastasize.

So what we have seen throughout the country, but particularly in Ramadi, is al Qaeda, through its money, its motivation, its tactics, its ideology, hijacks the local fight. So Ramadi is actually the al Qaeda front line.

Al Qaeda dominates all the other groups so effectively that it is in charge. This is where American Marines and soldiers every day go face to face with the very organization that attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and yet it seems that they’re being forced to do so under-resourced and with one arm tied behind their back.

Interview with Wolf Blitzer:

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: To be honest, I’m quite stunned that people are so surprised by this report. I mean, the situation has not deteriorated. It’s been like this for over a year, perhaps even two.

It can still be reclaimed; it’s not always lost. People who suggest that fail to understand the true dynamic. But certainly what the Marine general in charge of Al Anbar said tonight on the conference call is he admitted for the first time that right now, today, through the combination of the U.S. and/or Iraqi forces, he does not have enough troops to win against the al Qaeda insurgency.

His mission is to train, he said. If his mission was to change and that to be to win, then his metrics, his troop numbers would have to change.

This is not new. Al Qaeda has owned Al Anbar for quite some time. And the soldiers out there are being left out there undermanned just to hold the line. They’ve been screaming for more troops for at least a year and a half.

BLITZER: But it seems like the U.S. military has put a priority on getting the job done in Baghdad and its surrounding areas. That’s where they are bringing reinforcements. That’s where they are moving troops. And they are sort of relegating the Anbar Province out in the west, which is a huge part of Iraq, to a lesser priority.

Is that accurate?

WARE: That’s certainly what I’m being told by senior military intelligence officials. They are saying that Al Anbar and Ramadi (INAUDIBLE), like a saw, as long as we win Baghdad. But that’s very shortsighted.

If this is the global war on terror, President Bush put Al Anbar in the center of the war on terror. And they are undermanning it. This is making al Qaeda stronger, not weaker. This is giving them the oxygen they need to breathe.

BLITZER: You’ve just come back from Ramadi, one of your many visits to this part of Iraq. Give us a little flavor, Michael, of how the U.S. men and women, the military personnel who are deployed to the Anbar Province, how they are dealing with this. What kind of mood are they in?

WARE: We’ve just seen a new brigade go in and the other brigade come out. There’s some crossover. There’s some units that I’ve spent a lot of time with. There are some units out there that literally I’ve seen them bleed on the streets. And one of them is about to go home. And they stand by their resolve to fight where the president needs them.

But the toll it has taken on them out there. Ramadi is referred to as the “Meat Grinder.” And that’s really what it’s been.

It’s just so hard to express … what the battle is like out there. And it’s a false measure. … America, at the end of the day, in terms of fighting al Qaeda here in Iraq, is not committing to the fight.

And it’s the same across the country. Al Anbar does not have enough troops. Iraq does not have enough troops. You either do this war, or you don’t. And that’s the feeling of the men on the ground.