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[mack4289]

Articles like these make you wonder if Iraq was (or still could be) winnable militarily if the US had committed enough manpower to it and actually planned for the worst-case scenario. The problem with that question is the Bush admin could have never sold the worst case scenario to the public. Of course, even if the US had planned flawlessly for the war and the ensuing insurgency, there would have been nothing even close to a guarantee about the outcome.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/08/news/assess.php

"Sunni merchants watched warily from behind neat stacks of fruit and vegetables as Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno walked with a platoon of bodyguards through the Qatana bazaar here one recent afternoon. At last, one leathery-faced trader glanced furtively up and down the narrow, refuse-strewn street to check who might be listening, then broke the silence.

"America good! Al Qaeda bad!" he said in halting English, flashing a thumb's-up in the direction of the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq.

Until only a few months ago, the Central Street bazaar was enemy territory, watched over by U.S. machine-gunners in sandbagged bunkers on the roof of the governor's building across the road. Ramadi was the most dangerous city in Iraq, and the area around the building the deadliest place in Ramadi.

Now, a pact between local tribal sheiks and U.S. commanders has sent thousands of young Iraqis from Anbar Province into the fight against extremists linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The deal has all but ended the fighting in Ramadi and recast the city as a symbol of hope that the tide of the war may yet be reversed to favor the Americans and their Iraqi allies."

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/06/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Signs-of-Calm.php

" Shop owners long afraid of Baghdad's bombings and shootings are keeping their stores open later these days on the main street of Jadidah district, saying they feel safer after weeks of a beefed-up U.S. security crackdown.

It is one sign that many Iraqis sense violence is easing somewhat in Baghdad as U.S. forces fight to put down militants in the capital and areas on the city's doorstep to the north and south.

But Iraqis are not putting much faith in the lull � attacks still hit some districts, fear of kidnapping remains widespread, and everyone remembers past periods of calm that ended with new bursts of bloodshed."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/05/news/military.php

"Using his Iraqi partners to pick out the insurgents and uncover the bombs they had seeded along the cratered roads, [American military captain Ben] Richards's soldiers soon apprehended more than 100 suspected militants and several low-level emirs. The Iraqis called themselves the Local Committee. Richards has dubbed them the Kit Carson scouts.

"It is the only way that we can keep Al Qaeda out," said Richards, who operates from a former police station in the Buhritz sector of the city that still bears the sooty streaks from the day militants set it on fire last year.

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi organization with a small but significant foreign component, was deeply resented by many residents and other insurgent groups, people who live here said. Imposing a severe version of Islamic law, the group had installed its own clerics, established an Islamic court and banned the sale of cigarettes, which even this week were nowhere to be found in the humble shops in western Baquba."

[stevemcgarrett]

mack:

I hear where you're coming from but I'm afraid that even with the best of planning--something that arrogant pissant Rumsfeld couldn't deliver--it would have been a fiasco.

Powell knew as much and spent hours practically begging the President to ignore Rummy's desk-bound advice to no avail (he said as much yesterday).

But let's face it: even the Powell Doctrine is missing one piece of the puzzle; it's not enough to have the American public behind the military. Those being aided have to be overwhelmingly in favor of our presence too. And that just could never have been wrought in Iraq when the Baathists were ousted and planning revenge while licking their wounds, and the Shi'as had a score to settle.

[mack4289]

Maybe Iraq will be the nail in the coffin for the idea of military intervention in intra (inter?) country conflict. I think a more effective approach would be to try to evacuate as many people as possible.

Of course this would be a logisitical nightmare. These people would have to be held somewhere for a considerable period of time before they'd be allowed in the US or any country willing to accept refugees. Even with the most effective background checking, some criminals or terrorists would be able to enter the country through evacuation.

But if the stable, prosperous, democratic world wants to protect its status as such, letting states fail is not acceptable. Top down change seems unworkable. We (the stable, prosperous, democractic world) should be trying to organize an effort to give responsible citizens in these countries the opportunity to live in a better country. We should also be making it very clear that the terrorist elements in their country is the biggest reason such efforts are so difficult. Hopefully this could turn the sensible portions of these populations decisively against the terrorists.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

And today in Iraq...


07/09/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Spc. Anthony M.K. Vinnedge, 24, of Okeana, Ohio, died July 5 at the Radwaniyah Palace Complex, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident. The incident is under investigation. Vinnedge was assigned to Troop C, 2nd Squadron...
07/09/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Spc. Roberto J. Causor Jr., 21, of San Jose, Calif., died July 7 in Samarra, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion...
07/09/07 usatoday: Attacks rise on supply convoys
Attacks on supply convoys protected by private security companies in Iraq have more than tripled as the U.S. government depends more on armed civilian guards to secure reconstruction and other missions. There were 869 such attacks from...
07/09/07 BBC: Abducted Iraqi Sunnis found dead
The bodies of 12 Sunni Muslims have been found near to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, a day after they were abducted on their way home from work. The men, who worked at a bottling plant, were seized at a roadblock set up by suspected Shia militants...
07/09/07 AP: Iraq oil industry hit hard by violence, official says
The Iraqi oil industry was subjected to nearly 160 attacks by insurgents and saboteurs last year, killing and wounding dozens of employees and reducing exports by some 400,000 barrels a day, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said Monday.
07/09/07 Reuters: Roadside bomb kills 9 Iraqi soldiers
A ROADSIDE bomb killed nine Iraqi soldiers and wounded 20 others in northern Iraq today. Police said the bomb exploded as the soldiers were passing by in a truck near the town of Balad in Salahuddin province.
07/09/07 MoD: Corporal Christopher Read killed in Iraq
Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of Corporal Christopher Read, of 158 Provost Company, 3rd Regiment Royal Military Police, as a result of injuries that he sustained during a large scale operation in the early hours of the morning...7 July 2007.
07/09/07 Reuters: Iraq says 140,000 Turkish troops on border
he Turkish army has 140,000 soldiers along its border with northern Iraq as part of a "great mobilisation", Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Monday.
07/09/07 AP: Chicago soldier killed in Iraq explosion
Army Specialist Eric Lill, who was killed in Iraq by animprovised explosive device...attached to the 2nd Infantry Division based at Ft. Carson, Colo., died Friday in Baghdad following an attack on his vehicle during a patrol
07/09/07 Reuters: Iraqis warn of civil war if US troops withdraw
Iraqi leaders warned on Monday that an early U.S. troop withdrawal could tip Iraq into all-out civil war after the New York Times said debate was growing in the White House over a gradual scaling-down of forces.
07/09/07 NPR: Iraqi Refugees Land in U.S.
The first wave of Iraqi refugees has arrived in the United States: 63 resettlement cases in June and more are expected to come in September. U.S. officials have pledged to resettle 7,000 Iraqi's by the end of this year. Some 2 million Iraqi's...
07/09/07 AP: Ambushed contractors in Iraq were sent on deadly route
Internal memos indicate that four American security contractors who were ambushed and killed in Iraq in 2004 were sent the wrong way. The memos say the Blackwater USA contractors were told to drive through the dangerous city of Fallujah when a safer...
07/09/07 dailymail: Leader of Iraqi al-Qaeda threatens war on Iran
The leader of an al-Qaida umbrella group in Iraq has threatened to wage war against Iran unless it stops supporting Shiites in Iraq within two months.
07/09/07 IRIN: Number of IDPs tops one million
According to an Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) report, 142,260 families - about 1,037,615 individuals - have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) since 22 February 2006
07/09/07 Reuters: Roadside bomb kills 4 people in Baghdad bus terminal
Two roadside bombs killed four people and wounded 21 when they exploded minutes apart near Baghdad's main bus terminal in the city centre, police said.
07/09/07 Reuters: 1 civilian killed, 4 wound in Baghdad's Karrada district
One civilian was killed by a roadside bomb in the central Shi'ite district of Karrada and four other people were wounded, police said.
07/09/07 Reuters: Militants strangle family of four
Four members from the same family were strangled to death by militants who kidnapped them from the mainly Sunni district of Ghazaliya on Sunday, police said.
07/09/07 Reuters: Gunmen kill 1 person, wound 2 others in west Baghdad
One person was killed and two others wounded by gunmen who stormed a house in the mainly Sunni west Baghdad neighbourhood of Jamia on Sunday, police said.
07/09/07 Reuters: Tortured body found in Kirkuk
Police found the body of one man with torture marks in the northern city of Kirkuk on Sunday, police said.
07/09/07 Reuters: Insurgents kill 2 policemen in Baghdad's Adhamiya district
Insurgents killed two policemen and two Iraqi soldiers in an ambush as they responded to a bomb tip-off in the Sunni district of Adhamiya, police said.
07/09/07 AP: Iraqis Urged to Take Up Arms
Prominent Shiite and Sunni politicians called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves after a weekend of violence that claimed more than 220 lives, including 60 who died Sunday in a surge of bombings and shootings around Baghdad.
07/09/07 Reuters: Iraqis fleeing the violence, seeking safety beyond borders
Iraq's escalating sectarian violence is pushing whole families out of their homes. Fleeing men, women and children will pay steep fees for undercover, safe transport out of the country.

[Julius]