September 1, 2007 (LPAC)--Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson rips apart the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon for his support of the Bush Administration's policy in Iraq, in a column posted today on the website TPMCafe. O'Hanlon masquerades as a liberal intellectual on military and national security policy, but has long been a promoter of the U.S. intervention in Iraq, if not always pleased with how it has turned out. Johnson says that if you had seen O'Hanlon's Friday morning appearance on CNN "you would have been treated to a masterful display of toadying and sucking up, that put's the 'sick' in sycophant. O'Hanlon continues to insist that his DOD arranged and controlled trip this summer to limited areas of Iraq proved beyond doubt that the surge is working and we are progressing in Iraq."

While O'Hanlon doesn't offer any evidence for the much touted "progress," Johnson does offer evidence that there is, in fact, no progress in Iraq. To begin with, the U.S. has suffered about 1,000 more dead and wounded in the first eight months of 2007 than in the same period, last year. The number of Iraqis seeking refuge outside the country continues to climb, with about 30,000 going to Syria each month. The Sunni-Shia divide continues to worsen as shown by the political infighting among different factions in the government in Baghdad. Violence in some parts of Baghdad may indeed have declined, but there's "an alternative and darker explanation," Johnson notes. "Violence is down because there are fewer people. The absence of respiration is not a sign of progress." Finally, British troops are leaving southern Iraq. This means "the United States must either further divide and weaken its over strapped units and send them to Basra or cede the territory to the Shia militias that are in de facto control."

Johnson concludes that "If U.S. roads and bridges were in great shape, if American schools, particularly in inner cities, were the envy of the world, if every American had access to health care, then I could tolerate wasting $3 billion a week. But asking almost 3 Americans per day to die in Iraq, is not worth another drop of our blood."