The major offensives (Phantom Thunder, Arrowhead Ripper, et cetera) in Iraq continue today. The Washington Post has a story here that’s okay. I’m assuming it’s rather hard to find and report “both sides” of the story when the subject is changing so quickly — that is to say, I’m not certain that all the “naysaying” in this article is valid just yet, as the operation has just begun. The story does, however, make some important points:

Many counterinsurgency experts agree [that the U.S. does not have enough troops in Iraq]. Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., the director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a national security think tank, said flatly that Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, does not have enough troops. “I suspect General Petraeus is taking a risk here, but that’s what commanders do,” he said.

The issue of the number of troops has dogged the Bush administration and its generals since before the war began. Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, told Gen. Tommy R. Franks in September 2002 — seven months before the U.S. invasion — there were not enough troops in the war plan. Most famously, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, then the Army’s chief of staff, told a congressional hearing a month before the assault that the plan did not call for a sufficiently large occupation force.

Yet some who were sharply critical of the Bush administration back then judge the situation in another way now. “I think it is different — better planned, and tied to the operations in Baghdad,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash. He still maintains that the U.S. presence is at least 50,000 soldiers short but said that at least now “the troops we do have are being used economically and are being directed towards specific, important objectives.

It’s true. We don’t have enough forces on the ground. Hell, it’s likely we don’t have the forces to do it at all (without completely throwing mobilization and deployment schedules and standards out the window). But what’s worse: Even if we do have the forces, it’s unlikely Congress would commit them to the fight now. After years of bashing the Bush administration for not sending enough troops, it’s the Democrats who will now block Gen. Petraeus — the only real general we’ve had in this war — from receiving and keeping the troops he needs in Iraq.

In their first week, the new operations have resulted in the capture of more than 700 detainees, the killing of 160 insurgents, and the uncovering of hundreds of weapons caches and bombs, [Lt. Gen. Raymond] Odierno said.

Terry Daly, a retired U.S. government expert in counterinsurgency, said that if Phantom Thunder is indeed a short-term aggressive action intended to kill insurgents who have attacked the capital and to remove their rural strongholds, then he thinks it is the right move. “This is not more of the same-old, same-old futile search-and-destroy, but rather an operational raid” to help improve security in Baghdad, he said. “As such it is skilled American generalship, which we haven’t seen in a long time, and which looks good.”