Demagogue

Only days after GOP presidential aspirant John McCain called for additional U.S. troops to be deployed in Iraq, ex-Sec. of State Colin Powell begged to differ. According to the N.Y. Times:

Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state and former chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that the Army was “about broken” and that he saw nothing to justify an increase in troops in Iraq.

“I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppression of this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work,” he said in an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

... Mr. Powell said heavy demands on the Army had meant “a backlog of equipment that is not being repaired” and “repetitive tours” for soldiers assigned to Iraq.

“So if you surge now,” he said, “you’re going to be bringing in troops from the United States who have already been kept there even longer.”