Gen Petraeus

In an unsurprising move, President Bush decided to suspend troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer. Based on the assessment presented to Congress by Gen Petraeus that the current progress was “fragile and reversible.” Therefore, between now and the end of July, we’ll draw-down from 20 to 15 brigades before taking a 45-day pause to reassess the situation before making anymore changes. This will likely mean the next president will assume office with over 100,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Additionally, President Bush will announce a reduction in Army combat tours from 15 to 12 months, with 12 months between deployments. This new tour length will be applied to units deployed to the region in August. Hopefully, this will reduce the number of “in lieu of” taskings the other services perform in order to ease the deployment burden of their Army counterparts.

So, what about financing the war? Last year, the President asked Congress for $108 billion, to which Congress added $17 billion in domestic spending. Of course, this earned a veto from the President. This year, Congress is eyeing the war-funding bill as a catalyst to stimulate the economy, meaning more ear-marks.

{ sigh }

Supposedly, Congress is concerned with the cost of the war, but rather than trying to control those costs, they’re adding to it. Prudent? Evidently, they didn’t learn anything last year.

The U.S. has now spent over $500 billion on the war in Iraq, a total that could amount to trillions of dollars after factoring in the costs of veteran healthcare and the refurbishment of the military’s depleted equipment and materials.

What does this mean, really?

Current defense spending is roughly 4% of our GDP, compared to 9% in 1968, during the Viet Nam War. Though substantial, it’s hardly budget-busting.

Still, it’s time for the Iraqi government to pony-up! Iraq is pumping about 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day, the highest output since the 2003 invasion. Ambassador Crocker said that “the era of U.S.-funded major infrastructure projects is over” and Iraq will be spending its own money to pay for rebuilding.

Well, that’s a start…I think the Iraqis also need to re-pay the U.S. for the tremendous cost of their liberation. After all, we’ve essentially financed this war with debt and those bills are coming due.

(h/t: memeorandum) In preparation for Gen Petraeus progress report (among others) next month, the Pentagon has established a 24/7 communications desk to disseminate information about U.S. efforts in Iraq.

Of course, some (Democrats and the MSM?) suggested the Pentagon was using the communications desk as a message machine or propaganda tool, but dismissed the accusations by explaining its purpose of timely and efficient gathering and distributing information from eight time-zones away. According to Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell,

“I would not characterize it as a war room,” … “It’s far less sinister than that. It’s more like a library…create[d] [as] a central clearinghouse of information so we can pull in all that is coming out of Baghdad and Iraq and have it come into one point, so we can better be able to share it with people who are interested.”

So, why not a “war-room”? Why shouldn’t the military have the opportunity to correct the record when biased news agencies put out inaccurate information about the U.S. in the Middle East? Who better than those making the story to tell the story?

I think an information war-room is an appropriate description and this info hub should be considered as such. The Pentagon’s info hub is a good idea and too long in coming if you ask me. Frankly, I’m looking forward to more positive information from the area–info that I don’t have to search for!

And while I’m at it–I don’t have a problem with the term “propaganda” either. According to the U.S. History Encyclopedia, propaganda is “the deliberate use of information, images, and ideas to affect public opinion.” Propaganda was disseminated during WWII to boost the morale of U.S. citizens and garner support for the cause (remember “Rosie the Riveter”?). Was there something wrong with this? Propaganda is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it propagates outright lies (hello, MSM).

Author and journalist, Elizabeth Drew, said,

“Propaganda has a bad name, but its root meaning is simply to disseminate through a medium, and all writing therefore is propaganda for something. It’s a seeding of the self in the consciousness of others.”

More: check out Wake Up America!–Spree always has a lot to say about the MSM and their information machine…