ClaimsAdjuster:

Kagan talks about a "surge of 30,000 troops" to help implement a strategy that already been laid out by the NSC in 2003 and had been attempted by the military but failed because there there were not enough troops to implement the "hold" phase.

You sure this is the argument you want to make? It give Bush more credit than I would have for an earlier understanding of effective strategy, which just lacked additional troops for implementation. Just how does this argument help the cause of Obama and the other Dems who opposed the additional troops or the ignorant on this forum who insist that the surge was merely a temporary, "tactical," increase in troops unrelated to any larger strategy?