While I was on the radio last night, Bob Woodward was dropping bombshells.

George Bush, who always told us he listened to his Generals, opposed his Generals and ordered them to do the Surge anyway.

Woodward also says the Surge works because of some secret new military capability. I've been saying here there was a secret. I doubt, however, the secret I'm talking about is the secret Woodward is mentioning.

Here is one of the comments to the article.

""the surge worked"
"Is that the same as saying the military didn''t do the job for the first 4 years? That the first 120,000 soldiers weren''t enough? Oh maybe they were improperly deployed within Iraq?"

Again, this isn't the secret, but 120,000 was not enough.

The current Army CounterInsurgency Manual gives a rule of thumb of 20 soldiers needed for every 1000 citizens of the country you're trying to control. There were 27 Million Iraqis when we started. That means you need 540,000 soldiers. (Remember Gen Shinseki's assessment before the invasion that a force of "several hundred thousand" would be required?)

In some ways, military science is no different from construction management. If you have a building to construct of a certain size with known structural, electrical and plumbing requirements, etc., then you can go through and calculate how many man-hours are required to put up that building. If you need the building up from start to finish in a certain time period, then you must provide those man-hours within that period of time. Otherwise your building is not going to be finished on time.

This President and his administration was never willing to provide the requisite manpower at the critical time. That is why we have the situation we have had.

The members of his own party in the Congress failed to do their duty and control this President.

Here is the link to the article.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/04/60minutes/main4415771.shtml