From the WaPo:
The Pentagon is taking “very seriously” a classified intelligence report concluding that the U.S. military has fought to a stalemate in Iraq’s western Anbar province as political conditions also worsen in the “epicenter” of the country’s Sunni insurgency, a senior defense official said yesterday…
The report, first outlined publicly in The Washington Post yesterday, said a shortage of U.S. and Iraqi troops in Anbar and the collapse of local governments have left a vacuum that has been exploited by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. It painted a bleak picture of security prospects in Anbar, a large province bordering Syria and Jordan that includes the troubled cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.
CENTCOM rebuts, in part:
Recent media reports fail to accurately capture the entirety and complexity of the current situation in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. The classified assessment, which has been referred to in these reports, was intended to focus on the causes of the insurgency. It was not intended to address the positive effects Coalition and Iraqi forces have achieved on the security environment over the past years.
That said, there is an active insurgency in Anbar. The enemy we face has no concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people, nor any peaceful vision for their future. We believe the Iraqi people want something more and are willing to fight and die for it.We are making steady progress in the accomplishment of our primary mission to train and develop the Iraqi Security Forces to defeat the insurgency. This is due in large measure to the successful recruiting and training of thousands of Iraqi Police and improvements in the overall capabilities of the Iraqi Army.This has resulted in the transfer of increasing responsibilities to the ISF for fighting the insurgency. Finally, the progress we have made has been due to the dedicated and heroic actions of both US and Iraqi forces.
Why do you people think that freedom is something you can force people to want. If the people of Iraq want freedom, let them fight for it.
If we had Iraq troops marching down the streets of San Diego, wouldn’t we improvise weapons to blow them up?
So, essentially you think we ought to be neutral between the 15 million people who voted for self-government, and the 10-20,000 who don’t think they ought to have it?
Or that, having broken the spine of the previous tyranny, it’s OK to walk away and let the law of the jungle flourish?
If Iraqi troops had come here to liberate us from a soul-destroying regime, your final question might have some merit. As it is though, I think it poorly considered.
Even if installing a functioning self-government, capable of its own defense, and no threat to its peaceful neighbors wasn’t moral, it would still be in our national interest.
Bush I and Clinton had a policy that was working, this one is not. It is not the business of the United States to meddle in the affairs of another country. If 15 million want self government, let them fight for it – I recall 13 colonies which did that once.
You did not really answer my question, because we both know what the answer is. If you were an Iraqui in Iraq, you would be busting your butt to drive us out. You’d say, it may be a soul-destroying regime, but it is our soul-destroying regime! (And people like me, would love you for defending your country – just like we love you for defending ours)
“…If the people of Iraq want freedom, let them fight for it.”
They DO want freedom and they HAVE been fighting for it for decades. By being ill treated, serving a brutal dictator who tortured, brutalized, marginalized and killed them for even being associated with someone who might have spoken out about freedom once upon a time. Not all “fights” involve weapons and war.
The Iraqi people DO want freedom. You need to get your news from sources other that the D.U. and SWWNBN.
There is something that has always puzzled me. That is those that criticize the U.S. for disbanding the Iraqi army after we invaded. If their army was so good, why is it taking us so long to train up a new army and why is that army having such a hard time when they engage?
Bush I and Clinton had a policy that was working? Have you heard of the USS Cole? Khobar Towers? US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? The first WTC attack?
W’s policy initially was a continuation of Clinton’s policy, but that changed after 9/11. How could you have missed all this?
We did not go to Iraq to “meddle in the foreign affairs of another country.” That’s what we stayed behind to do, after having persuaded ourselves that Saddam could not be trusted with the world’s most dangerous weapons, and having take his tyranny apart.
And please do not pretend you know me well enough to say that I would defend a fascist regime at home. My duty is not to the government, it is to the Constitution. I hope and pray that as an American citizen, enjoying freedom as a right of birth, I would fight for it if threatened.
ILF, I know you feel these things you’re writing about strongly, but I’m afraid you’re punching over your weight. Or if not, you’re not punching hard enough. Read the comments that follow this post, and when you feel like you’re ready to engage at that level have at it.
Just now you’re wasting our time.
Babs, we’re trying to train them to Western standards, with junior officers and NCO’s who are capable of thinking on their own and acting on initiative. That’s relatively novel for that part of the world.
We also sent all of the old general officers and high ranking Ba’athists off to coventry in the west. That’s causing us all kinds of trouble, but I don’t see that there’s much of any way around it.
Come and take a walk with me through this green and growing land
Walk through the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Walk through the valleys and the rivers and the plains
Walk through the sun and walk through the rain
This is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Her glory shall rest on us all
From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too
Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new
Texas and Ohio and the California shore
Tell me, who could ask for more
Yet she’s only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand
— Phil Ochs
“If 15 million want self government, let them fight for it – I recall 13 colonies which did that once.”
Those 13 colonies had HELP. They didn’t do it on their own. They couldn’t have. And that’s when the only weapons were muskets and cannons and wooden ships. Expecting a brutalized population to overthrow today’s mechanized forces on their own is ridiculous.