Cliff noted this piece earlier. It’s quite good. A couple of points:

1) We definitely need more advisers, as he argue.

2) It’s an exaggeration to say, “the Army and Marine Corps don’t have any extra troops to send,” as I try to explain here.

3) If troops are being deployed to “mega bases,” a ready source of what would effectively be more troops on the ground would be to re-deploy them back out.

4) It is an important point that it’s not just troop levels that matter, but the strategy that the troops are implementing. This is one reason I support sending more troops in Baghdad–they would be implementing what seems a very sound, classic counter-insurgency approach crafted by the highly regarded Gen. Chiarelli.