Cognitive Dissonance (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?)
Thomas Ricks has some explaining to do, as it takes him less than twelve hours to perform a truly astonishing feat of journamalism. Compare and contrast:
(1) The lead from Thomas Ricks's article in Tuesday morning's Washington Post:
General May See Early Success in Iraq: The battle for Baghdad will start in mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods chosen by military strategists as being the least likely to offer stiff resistance, raising the odds of early success, according to military planners and officials.... But that could be followed by a sharp increase in violence as insurgents learn U.S. and Iraqi tactics, military officials said....
[G]eneral [Petraeus], whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for this morning, plans to send all 17,500 additional U.S. troops ordered by President Bush into Baghdad.... Anticipating an uneven performance by the Iraqi army, military planners are advocating using American force and funding quickly to establish early victories, both in improving security and showing economic progress.
Petraeus's appointment as the top U.S. commander comes at a key point in the war.... The general offered a harsh critique of U.S. mistakes in Iraq in written testimony submitted to the Senate yesterday, noting a range of ills that included poorly managed elections and inadequate reconstruction plans. Now, as military and political leaders tout Petraeus as the best man to salvage the Iraq effort, he is in the delicate position of wanting to show progress quickly without raising expectations too high. "This will be a difficult mission and time is not on our side," he states in the written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee...
(2) Thomas Ricks Monday morning on the Brian Lehrer show:
http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/2007/01/thomas_ricks_on.html[W]hile [the Bush administration] called this "Maliki's plan," it's almost the opposite. It's "we're going to send troops into the middle of the city, double the American presence on the streets of Baghdad because we don't trust your army" [plan].... The US government still hopes for a reconciliation... some sort of political solution.... [P]olitically the Bush administration consistently has been about 6 to 12 months behind the curve in Iraq from the very get-go.... The reality of Iraq that they haven't caught up with, I fear, is that the Shiites have concluded that they've won.... All we're doing is being a useful tool to help them out and keep the Sunnis off their back while they consolidate their hold....
The Iraqi prime minister saying he's dropping his protection of Muqtada al Sadr is like the third-base coach of the Yankees' single A farm team saying he's going to straighten out George Steinbrenner! That's the power relationship between Maliki and Sadr. Sadr commands a more powerful force than Maliki does. By US military calculations, Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, has more effective fighters than the Iraqi army does.... [T]wo aspects have characterized the American approach in Iraq over the past three years. One has been official over-optimism in which institutions fail to recognize the basic reality on the ground. The second is a rush to failure with Iraqi forces.... [T]he concern of a lot of people... especially officers who have a tour or two in Iraq is that the new plan combines both those flaws: official optimism about what Iraqis are willing to do, and a rush to failure in pushing Iraqis too soon to do too much....
Petraeus is a fascinating character. Just about the best general in the Army in a lot of people's view.... [H]e had a very successful first tour in Iraq in 2003-2004.... The other division commanders were digging themselves a pretty deep hole. Petraeus realized very quickly that US military training doctrine didn't really do the job.... He had the 101st Airborne Division up in Mosul and was quite successful.... [T]he bottom line on Petraeus with a lot of officers now is "look -- this situation is pretty bad, it's pretty bleak out there -- if anyone can do it Petraeus is probably the guy who can try best." But even then, what I'm hearing, is they don't expect it to succeed...
Either Ricks is misleading his radio listeners by allowing Brian Lehrer to goad him into portraying an excessively negative picture of the situation in Iraq, or he is misleading his Washington Post readers--on page A1--by letting his editors hornswoggle him into painting an excessively positive picture of the situation in Iraq.
We'll know which it is in three years, when he releases his next book. My betting is that the straight poop is on the radio, and the bulls--- is in the Post.
As I've said, I don't see it lasting a decade.
