The following is excerpted from Thyrsday's (taxpayer funded) PBS News Hour, with emphas added:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june04/iraq_4-29.htmlMARGARET WARNER: Is the kind of deal the marines seem to be pursuing the right way to deal with Fallujah? For that, we turn to retired army Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a former special forces officer and Middle East analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. John Mearsheimer, a former air force officer and now co-director of the program on international security policy at the University of Chicago. And retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who teaches military operations and planning and is a long-time consultant to the Defense Department.
Well, gentlemen, … the marines are at least pursuing this idea that they wouldn't go into Fallujah, that instead
they would deputize or turn it over to a force of former Iraqi army officers. Why would they do that, Sam Gardiner, and do you think it's a smart way to go?
Is this the best way out?COL. SAM GARDINER:
I think it's absolutely brilliant, Margaret. We have gotten ourselves into what I would call a wicked problem in Fallujah.
In strategy, a wicked problem is one for which there is no good answer. So what you search for are the least bad answers, and I think we've found one.
---snip---
MARGARET WARNER: Do you see it that way, John Mearsheimer, a brilliant way out of a box?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I wouldn't use exactly those words, but I do agree with the colonel that it is the least bad alternative. It would be a disaster if we went into Fallujah.
Nevertheless, we do want to emphasize that it is a bad alternative, and it's a bad alternative for two reasons. The first reason is that, in fact,
the bad guys have faced us down, and we've pulled back.
We have been promising, indeed President Bush said yesterday that we would go in and deal with the bad guys in Fallujah. In fact, we're not going to go into Fallujah, at least according to this plan.We're going to pull back. And that's going to be seen widely, especially in Iraq, as a
victory for bad guys. The second point I would make is that … it's hard to believe that they're going to put a viable military force together in the next couple days that could go into Fallujah and do the dirty work that we couldn't do ourselves -- just very hard to imagine.
---snip---
MARGARET WARNER: … Pat Lang, … do you think, as Sam Gardiner does, that it's a brilliant way out of this problem, and/or do you also agree with John Mearsheimer that it will be seen as a defeat for the United States and a victory for the insurgents?
COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, I think it will be seen across the Arab world and in Iraq as a defeat, not for the marines but for the United States .
Everybody knows the marines could level Fallujah and kill everybody in the town (sic, Fallujah is a city with 300,000 population) if they put their mind to it, but I do think it's not a bad outcome from this.
I've thought for quite a while we needed to do something sensible politically for the Sunni Arab population of Iraq, and we needed to show firmness,
well, we made it clear if a solution wasn't found, we would have leveled Fallujah. ---snip---
Will this be seen as a U.S. defeat?MARGARET WARNER: {more of the same)
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