Bush's escalation is going... not so good.

Apparently George Bush forgot to talk to the Iraqis about his "new" plans for Iraq. (Emphasis mine)

Just days after President Bush unveiled a new war plan calling for more than 20,000 additional American troops in Iraq, the heart of the effort — a major push to secure the capital — faces some of its fiercest resistance from the very people it depends on for success: Iraqi government officials.

American military officials have spent days huddled in meetings with Iraqi officers in a race to turn blueprints drawn up in Washington into a plan that will work on the ground in Baghdad. With the first American and Iraqi units dedicated to the plan due to be in place within weeks, time is short for setting details of what American officers view as the decisive battle of the war.

But the signs so far have unnerved some Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems — ranging from a contested chain of command to how to protect American troops deployed in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous districts — that some fear could hobble the effort before it begins.

First among the American concerns is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan. “We are being played like a pawn.”

Was anyone aware of this condition before Bush tossed the die for his latest turn at Risk™? Apparently, not talking with each other about plans is standard operating procedure.

Along with those problems, the Americans cite logistical issues that must be solved before the new plan can begin to work. Intent on using the large numbers of additional American and Iraqi troops that have been pledged to the plan to get “boots on the ground” across Baghdad, they are planning to establish perhaps 30 or 40 “joint security sites” spread across nine new military districts in the capital, many in police stations that have been among the most frequent targets in the war.

But in many areas, there are no police stations, at least none suitable as operational centers, so the planners are seeking alternate locations, including large houses, that will have to be fortified with 15-foot-high concrete blast walls, rolls of barbed wire and machine-gun towers

There are no solutions yet to longstanding problems like who — the American forces, or the Iraqis’ own anemic logistics system — will supply the fuel required to keep Iraqi Humvees and troop-carrying trucks running, at a time when the American supply chain will face new strains in supporting thousands of additional American troops.

The plan gives a central role to the National Police, viewed as widely infiltrated by Shiite militias and, despite an intensive American retraining program, still suspected of a strongly Shiite sectarian bias. One American officer said that the National Police commanders have been “dragging their feet” over their role in the new plan and that they could seriously compromise the operation.

There's a picture forming here. It's familiar, but I can't put my finger on it.

... factors have thrust American military planners into the equivalent of a two-minute drill, trying to develop a plan that will yield rapid gains in regaining control of Baghdad neighborhoods that have slipped into near-anarchy as Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads have run rampant. While American officers are confident the additional troops will make a major impact, they worry about what will happen when the American troop commitment is scaled down again, and Iraqi troops are left facing the main burden of patrolling the city. That prospect raises the specter of repeating what has happened on several other occasions in Baghdad: Americans clearing neighborhoods house-by-house, only for insurgents and militiamen to reappear when Iraqi security forces take over from the Americans and prove incapable of holding the ground, or compliant with the marauding gunmen. That was the pattern with Operation Together Forward, the last effort to secure Baghdad, which began with an additional 7,000 American troops over the summer, and effectively abandoned within two months when Iraqi troops failed to hold areas the Americans handed over to them.

Another concern is that the target of the new Baghdad plan — Sunni and Shiite extremists — may replicate the pattern American troops have seen before when they have embarked on major offensives — of “melting away” only to return later. Some officers report scattered indications that some Shiite militiamen may already be heading for safer havens in southern Iraq, calculating that they can wait the new offensive out before returning to the capital.

“This is an enemy that will trade space for time,” one officer said.

I think I'm getting it now. Operation Cedar Falls comes to mind... back in 1967.

America forces begin Operation Cedar Falls, which is intended to drive Vietcong forces from the Iron Triangle, a 60 square mile area lying between the Saigon River and Route 13. Nearly 16,000 American troops and 14,000 soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army move into the Iron Triangle, but they encounter no major resistance. Huge quantities of enemy supplies are captured. Over 19 days, 72 Americans are killed, victims mostly of snipers emerging from concealed tunnels and booby traps. Seven hundred and twenty Vietcong are killed. Operation Cedar Falls occurs. It is the largest combined offensive to date and involves 16,000 American and 14,000 South Vietnamese soldiers clearing outViet Cong from the 'Iron Triangle' area 25 miles northwest of Saigon. The Viet Cong choose not to fight and instead melt away into the jungle. Americans then uncover an extensive network of tunnels and for the first time use 'tunnel rats,' the nickname given to specially trained volunteers who explore the maze of tunnels. After the American and South Vietnamese troops leave the area,Viet Cong return and rebuild their sanctuary. This pattern is repeated throughout the war as Americans utilize 'in-and-out' tactics in which troops arrive by helicopters, secure an area, then depart by helicopters.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You would think that somebody would be able to take that Southeast Asian cluster-fuck and learn something from it. Isn't there a book in some library or something?

If they find a tunnel complex in Baghdad, filled with insurgent stuff, I'll make myself available for other comparisons which CENTCOM might be overlooking.

(Yes. They're going to find tunnels. They will call the people who search them tunnel gophers because they will forget what the name of the preceding unit used to be.)