On Dec. 23, an anonymous Defense Department official told the Los Angeles Times that top American military commanders in Iraq, including Gen. George Casey, had “decided to recommend a ‘surge’ of fresh American combat forces.”

But in an interview last Friday, Casey told reporters that he still has doubts about an President Bush’s troop escalation plan in Iraq. From today’s New York Times:

The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq’s security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias. And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all of Iraq’s problems, which are at base their problems. … It’s always been my view that a heavy and sustained American military presence was not going to solve the problems in Iraq over the long term.

Additionally, according to Casey’s spokesman, the general, as of Dec. 23, had “not recommended more troops be sent here.”

The Bush administration has been heavily pushing the idea that there is support for troop escalation in Iraq. But in reality, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are unanimously opposed to Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq, as are prominent conservative senators, including outgoing Foreign Relations committee chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) and outgoing Judiciary committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA). Many military officials believe that Bush has tried to bribe them into supporting his escalation plan by offering a tradeoff of increasing the size of the military.

Casey was “scheduled to shift out of Iraq in the summer.” But that now may “happen in February or March.”

Time magazine’s new managing editor Richard Stengel has invited neoconservative leader and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol “to become what Stengel calls a ‘star’ columnist for the magazine.” Media Matters has more.

- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) on escalation in Robert Novak’s latest column. “I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq,” Hagel tells Novak. “It is folly.”

In a letter to constituents, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) blasted Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress, for using a Koran in a private, unofficial swearing in ceremony. Goode wrote, “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.”

Goode’s remarks have been widely criticized as bigoted. But he’s not backing down. In an op-ed in this morning’s USA Today, Goode writes that Ellison’s election is an indication that we are at risk of “infiltration” by Islamic extremists who want another 9/11. An excerpt:

My letter also stated, “If American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.”

Let us remember that we were not attacked by a nation on 9/11; we were attacked by extremists who acted in the name of the Islamic religion. I believe that if we do not stop illegal immigration totally, reduce legal immigration and end diversity visas, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to infiltration by those who want to mold the United States into the image of their religion, rather than working within the Judeo-Christian principles that have made us a beacon for freedom-loving persons around the world.

In response to Goode’s column, the USA Today editors write, “Tolerance and religious freedom are at America’s heart. So is the nation’s embrace of people from all countries and cultures. Several million Muslims live in the USA. It is to the nation’s credit that one of them will join Congress this week.”

have caused “over a third of the 3,000 American GI deaths in Iraq.” The Christian Science Monitor notes that these IEDs have “bedeviled” Pentagon war planners and “the danger is increasing despite efforts to counter it.”