Maverick McCain on Iraq

We all know about Maverick McCain, the media's favorite "straight-talker". He's bold and independent and stuff like that.

Well, Current History magazine has somehow gotten on a roll the last couple of months and has been printing articles that people might actually want to read. Their January 2006 issue focuses on the Iraq War. And that bold Maverick McCain has a contribution, "Stay to Win". Here's his proposal:

... America needs more troops in Iraq. For this reason, I believe that current ideas to effect a partial drawdown during 2006 are exactly wrong. While the United States and its partners are training Iraqi security forces at a furious pace, these Iraqis should supplement, not substitute for, the coalition forces on the ground. Instead of drawing down, the United States should be ramping up, with more civil-military soldiers, translators, and counterinsurgency operations teams. Decisions about troop levels should be tied to the success or failure of the mission in Iraq, not to the number of Iraqi troops trained and equipped. And while American policy makers seek higher troop levels for Iraq, they should at last face facts and increase the standing size of the US Army. It takes time to build a larger army, but had the United States done so even after its invasion of Iraq, its military would have more soldiers available for deployment now. (my emphasis)

Somehow, the old "straight-talker" manages to avoid saying anything in the article about the reinstated draft that would be necessary to do this.

But that's the Maverick's Iraq policy: escalate, escalate, escalate.

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