Letter: Troop surge will only make things worse

Friday, Jan. 12, 2007 | 6:58 a.m.

President Bush's dream of proving that he was right all along has become both delusional and dangerous as Iraq teeters on the brink.

Bush appears to have learned nothing from the past three years. Although the Iraq Study Group report may not have been perfect, at least it made clear that a total overhaul of U.S. policy on Iraq is urgently required.

It appears as if Bush was pretending to consider the group's recommendations as he was returning to fantasies of military victory.

Now, after last month admitting for the first time that "we are not winning" in Iraq, Bush has confirmed he will send more than 20,000 troops to quell the violence in Baghdad. The president's "new way forward" is being formulated to achieve his objective of an Iraq "that can govern, sustain, and defend itself."

Sounds wonderful, but there's one rather serious flaw. The fact is, the surge option had been tried before, and it failed miserably. "Operation Forward Together" was tried in the middle of 2006 with substantial numbers of troops having surged into Baghdad, but that only made Baghdad more dangerous, not less.

U.S. troops are powerless to stop the ongoing civil war and, in fact, simply provoke the Iraqis into even greater feats of carnage.

Chip Antala, North Las Vegas