After taking office, Trump announced that he would delegate authority to the Pentagon to set troop levels.
"I made it clear I would set troop levels to achieve victory in Iraq, not victory at the polls," Bush writes.
Even as Mr. Trump has granted Mr. Mattis the authority to set troop levels, the administration's broader strategy review has yet to be completed.
Consider that Trump gave Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, but the Secretary chose not to act until after the president signed off on the larger strategy.
The U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly, said the move is similar to the April decision that gave the Pentagon more authority to set troop levels in Iraq and Syria.
US policy on Afghanistan is evolving at a time when the defence department is particularly powerful in policy-making, after Trump delegated authority to his defence secretary, James Mattis, to set troop deployment levels there.
After a career marked by extraordinary achievements - war correspondent during the Boer war, Liberal home secretary (hated for setting troops against striking miners) and his finest hour as wartime prime minister - Churchill's strangest, least celebrated times came after the war.
This is not what a leader does, and it follows a previous Trump decision to remove himself from the responsibility of setting troop levels in Iraq and Syria.
So instead he set his troops to construct a road from the rubble, and after backbreaking labour he got the men, horses and mules down the slope and below the snowline.
Hence their reaction to the protest that day when they set the troops on their own people, killing at least 15 and injuring hundreds more.
