For Release: June 4 , 2007
A s the U.S. begins what the Bush administration hopes is the final effort to secure victory through a "surge" of troops, Gen. Jack Keane, Col. William Hix, Col. H.R. McMaster, Maj. Thomas Mowle, State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow and other military and government officials talk to F rontline about the events that have led up to the current strategy in " Endgame . " The program airs Tuesday, June 19 at 9/8 p.m. CT on KET2 and Monday, J une 25 at 10/9 p.m. CT on KET1.Despite the early assurances by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and four-star Gen. George Casey that maintaining a "light footprint"-- minimizing the role of the American forces while building up the Iraq security forces -- was the best way to proceed in Iraq, s ectarian violence continued to grow .
As Rumsfeld and Casey insist ed that things were going well, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent Zelikow to Iraq to assess the situation. McMaster's "clear, hold and build" effort conducted in Tal Afar was one of the rare successful operations Zelikow could find. After U.S. troops cleared insurgents from the city by seeking them out door to door, an ongoing troop presence in each neighborhood helped the residents feel secure, and the rebuilding by U.S. troops could begin. "What is amazing is how once you are able to lift the pall of fear off these people, how life just flows back into these cities," McMaster says. "But what's important is to keep security there."
Following what President Bush called a Republican "thumpin'" in the November 2006 U.S. elections, the president replaced Donald Rumsfeld with Robert M. Gates. The White House would publicly launch a review of the Iraq strategy and ultimately call in Gen. Keane, who proposed "clear, hold and build" in Baghdad with a "surge" of new troops. But for the military's strategists, the nagging question is whether it is already too late.
"Endgame" is the fifth film in a series of Iraq war stories from Frontline producer Michael Kirk, including "Rumsfeld's War," "The Torture Question," "The Dark Side" and "The Lost Year in Iraq." The first four films are available for viewing at /pbs/frontline">www.pbs.org/frontline.
Frontline "Endgame" is a co-production of Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd. and WGBH/Boston. More information about KET programming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.