"War Czar" Hates the Surge? (Updated)

So the White House has finally found its "war czar" -- someone to coordinate efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq -- after three generals turned down the job. But here's the funny thing about the czar, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute: Early last year, he (like most Pentagon officials) was saying publicly that extra troops in Iraq would be a bad idea.

“You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq. It’s very difficult to do that when you have 150,000-plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country,” Lt. Gen. Lute told Charlie Rose in 2006.

I wonder: Does the general still believe that? Because, if so, it puts him squarely against the centerpiece of the current strategy in Iraq: the "surge" of tens of thousands of additional soldiers.

While we're doing gotchas, about a year earlier, Lt. Gen. Lute told CNN that Iraqi forces should be "enough to sustain the fight against the counterinsurgency country-wide" by "calendar year '06."

"Increasingly, in 2005, I think we can all expect that we will find that our Iraqi security force partners will begin to step up to the point where they overtake us and assume the lead in the counterinsurgency," he said in a separate interview.

Now, on the plus side, Lute has said some very smart things about what it will take to beat back Islamic extremists. Here's an example:

*“You need a network to defeat a network.”
*

That concept is key to winning against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and
Iraq, according to Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, director of operations, J-3
of the Joint Staff.
*

*Lute contended that al-Qaida is a networked organization but that
“our organization is still the same as before the war and it is insufficient to defeat the enemy.”
*

*The terror network, Lute said, consists of tangible assets, such as training camps, weapons and personnel, as well as intangible aspects.
*

*“We can kill and capture the enemy and go after the camps,” Lute said today at a breakfast hosted by the Association of the United
States Army in Arlington, Va. “But the intangible parts of the network defy a conventional approach...”
*

*“They have a safe haven on the Internet,“ he said. “No one in the
U.S. military has been tasked with the mission of attacking these intangibles. Until we do they will operate with impunity...”
*

“This war is more about will and perception than firepower,” he said. “We have concluded that, in that sense, we are not equipped to attack the enemy. We must attack the intangible part of the network if we are going to win.”

UPDATE: “[Lute] said to me when he interviewed for this position, ‘Now, you need to understand that I was skeptical of the surge,’ ” [national security adviser Stephen] Hadley recalled, using the administration term for the troop buildup in Iraq.
He said that General Lute, who helped to develop the strategy, had raised questions about whether “Iraqi security forces would step up and contribute what they were supposed to do,” and whether the Iraqi government was committed to political reconciliation and providing economic resources. “We developed a strategy that we thought answered those questions,” Mr. Hadley said, adding, “He’s saying that he supports the strategy, very clearly supports the strategy.”

Well, that's about as clear as mud. Here's how the Washington Post puts it:

In choosing Lute, Bush picked a key internal voice of dissent during the administration review that led to the troop increase. Reflecting the views of other members of the Joint Chiefs, Lute argued that a short-term “surge” would do little good and that any sustained increase in forces had to be matched by equal emphasis on political and economic steps, according to officials informed about the deliberations.

Lute believed the situation in Iraq reflected the same mistakes as the ineffective and disorganized response to Hurricane Katrina, according to a source familiar with the debate. Like others at the Pentagon, he also was aggravated because civilian agencies, in his view, had not done nearly enough to help stabilize Iraq. And he was outspoken about the increasing strains on the
U.S. military, officials said.

(High five: Hot Air)>