Pentagon: Give it one final Friedman

From today's Guardian:

An elite team of officers advising US commander General David Petraeus in Baghdad has concluded the US has six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

Their to-do list is a bit daunting, to say the least:

By improving security, the plan's short-term aim is to create time and space for the Iraqi government to bring rival Shia, Sunni and Kurd factions together in a process of national reconciliation, us officials say. If that works within the stipulated timeframe, longer-term schemes for rebuilding Iraq under the so-called "go long" strategy will be set in motion. But the next six months are make-or-break for both the US military and the Iraqi government.

Nothing Bush, Bliar, Cheney and Rice can't handle though...right?

A few small problems remain:

The main obstacles confronting Gen Petraeus's team are:
· Insufficent numbers of troops on the ground
· A "disintegrating" international coalition
· An anticipated upsurge in violence in the south as the British leave
· Morale problems as casualties rise
· A failure of political will in Washington and/or Baghdad

"Insufficient numbers?" That's putting it mildly. Apart from the fact that we're sending troops before they're ready to go the so-called surge isn't nearly enough to do the job -- as everybody but the residents of the Beautiful White House™ know by now:

Their biggest headache was insufficient numbers of troops on the ground despite the increase ordered by Mr Bush, the former official said. "We don't have the numbers for the counter-insurgency job even with the surge. The word 'surge' is a misnomer. Strategically, tactically, it's not a surge," an American officer said.

According to the US military's revised counter-insurgency field manual, FM 3-24, authored by Gen Petraeus, the optimum "troop-to-task" ratio for Baghdad requires 120,000 US and allied troops in the city alone. Current totals, even including often unreliable Iraqi units, fall short of that number. The deficit is even greater in conflict areas outside Baghdad.

[Emphases added.]

Condi Rice: "General Shinseki Nobody ever predicted we would need substantially more troops to accomplish our goals in Iraq."

Small update: As Moondance points out, I committed the sin of redundancy -- "one final Friedman". Every Friedman is by definition final. And the Condi quote is (as far as I know) fictional, though no doubt she would say that if asked.