Secret Pentagon Study Comes Up with Three Options: 'Go Big, Go Long and Go Home'

A secret Pentagon study commissioned by General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has come up with three options for Iraq, dubbed, "Go big, go long and go home," the Washington Post reported Monday (November 20th). "Go big" would be sending substantially more troops to Iraq, "go long" would mean reducing the size of the force in Iraq but staying longer, and "go home" would be pulling out.

But GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the House Armed Services Committee chairman, said in an Associated Press interview that he favors another option he dubbed "Go Iraqi." He said the U.S. should push trained and available Iraqi security forces to the front lines of the fight to stabilize Iraq. He said the Pentagon had told him that 114 Iraqi battalions are trained and equipped, and 27 of those units are operating in areas that see less than one attack a day.

The Pentagon review reported on by the Post is not the much-anticipated report being prepared by a special advisory commission led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, which is due out shortly.