From today's Wall Street Journal:
Senior military officials are betting that larger U.S. military training teams that would live and work with Iraqi units could speed the development of an Iraqi army force that has shown some promise, but is still bedeviled by corruption, absenteeism and logistical problems. How quickly the Iraqi army improves could ultimately determine how quickly U.S. troops could withdraw from the country. However, even the staunchest advocates of building up the Iraqi army warn that the strategy carries significant risks that could derail it. In the near term, commanders say, shifting more U.S. troops into training and advisory jobs could lead to an increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad, because there would be fewer U.S. troops patrolling the streets. Iraqi army units and their U.S. trainers would have to pick up the slack.
But how does a surge in violence advance the political process? If drawing the training teams from current US brigades on the ground "carries significant risks," why do it? Why not take the advice of former Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane and others? The bottom line: the commander in chief needs to act. Is there still a copy of " Supreme Command," a book on the president's summer reading list a few years back, somewhere in the West Wing?