Poll: Foreign policy "experts" oppose the surge

What do foreign policy "experts" know anyway? These same inside-the-Beltway eggheads agreed with invading Iraq in the first place, and then again with the "surge" when it was first announced. So, they were wrong then and then, but they're correct now? Sounds to me like they're awfully slow to get with the program.

You'd get a smarter opinion on Iraq asking the average American on the street, who's been skeptical about the "surge" since early 2007, and damned skeptical about the Iraq occupation since at least October 2006.

U.S. foreign policy experts oppose Bush's surge
Mon Aug 20, 2007
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than half of top U.S. foreign policy experts oppose President George W. Bush's troop increase as a strategy for stabilizing Baghdad, saying the plan has harmed U.S. national security, according to a new survey.

As Congress and the White House await the September release of a key progress report on Iraq, 53 percent of the experts polled by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress said they now oppose Bush's troop build-up.

That is a 22 percentage point jump since the strategy was announced early this year.

The survey of 108 experts, including Republicans and Democrats, showed opposition to the so-called "surge" across the political spectrum, with about two-thirds of conservatives saying it has been ineffective or made things worse in Iraq.

Foreign Policy, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the experts polled on May 23 to June 26 included former government officials in senior positions including secretary of state, White House national security adviser and top military commanders.

The findings were published in the form of a Terrorism Index in the magazine's September/October issue, to be released on Monday. The magazine published similar indices in July 2006 and in February.

Bush has deployed 30,000 additional U.S. forces in and around Baghdad to quell sectarian violence in a bid to foster political reconciliation between Iraqi's Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish communities.

The strategy was announced early in the year but U.S. forces did not reach their intended strength in Baghdad until mid-June.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, are due next month to provide Congress with a progress report that could prove vital in determining how long U.S. troops stay.