U.S. Trying To Get It Right In Iraq

As Fifth Year Of War Begins, Officials Insist This Security Plan Will Work

(AP)  In Hit, a Sunni Arab city 100 miles west of Baghdad, 3rd Infantry Division troops are helping the hospital administrator build a new wing. The U.S. unit that had been there before detained the administrator — who doubles as the only surgeon — three times after finding the hospital was treating wounded insurgents.

The new American interpretation is that the staff were simply fulfilling their oaths as physicians.

To set the tone, Petraeus has made several high-profile forays into public markets in Baghdad and elsewhere, strolling around without a helmet, although behind a phalanx of armed guards, smiling and greeting bystanders with simple Arabic phrases.

All that carries some risk to U.S. troops, moving off heavily fortified garrisons and into communities where they are more vulnerable to attack. But the U.S. command seems prepared to take the chance.

The new motto: "The more you protect the force, the less secure you really are."

The risk has become necessary because of the failure of Iraqi forces to cope with the crisis — despite years of U.S. claims that the fresh-minted soldiers and police were making rapid progress.

U.S. officials rushed to get more Iraqi police and soldiers into the streets after the insurgency gained steam in late 2003. The result was a force with inadequate leadership, poor fighting skills and infiltrated by militia supporters.

Time after time, American troops have handed over towns to Iraqi forces, only to have them fall under the influence of extremists. Sectarian bloodletting soared in Baghdad last year after most U.S. troops had moved to large installations outside the city.

During the ongoing Baghdad security operation, U.S. troops were able to move into many areas of the capital with little or no resistance because many Iraqis trusted them more than their own security forces.

With luck, the new strategy will buy time for Iraq's secular and ethnic political parties to agree on how to share power — something that they have been unable to do over the four years since Saddam's regime collapsed.

But time may prove the toughest enemy.

Democrats in the House and Senate are moving ahead with different bills calling for the withdrawal of American troops next year. Although President Bush has threatened to veto both bills, pressure is mounting on the U.S. command here to show results — or start packing up for home.

That may encourage Iraqi politicians to resist U.S. pressure for concessions they consider redline issues. Both Shiite and Sunni militants may be laying low, saving their resources for an even bloodier civil conflict once the Americans have gone.

Nevertheless, some U.S. soldiers believe that ordinary Iraqis would be willing to stand up to the gunmen if they believe the U.S. won't abandon them.

In 2004, U.S. troops had to leave a string of communities in western Iraq when violence flared closer to Baghdad. The U.S. military simply lacked the troops to control a diverse population in a country physically bigger than California.

Insurgents came back to western cities like Haditha and Hit and massacred Iraqi police recruited by the Americans.

U.S. commanders are reluctant to talk about time frames for the counterinsurgency operation, but in recent days senior officers have indicated it will likely stretch into 2008 — which may not be palatable to a U.S. public weary of the cost.

In Hit, Sgt. Maj. Samuel Coston of Wallace, N.C., back for his third assignment in Iraq, pointed to a mosque in the center of the dusty, ramshackle town, scene of several bloody battles over the past three years.

"The terrorists used to fire mortars from that mosque," Coston said. "The imam told us 'if you're going to leave, I won't support you. But if you stay, I'll be neutral."'

[bm6005]

Mistake 1, killing only the extremists. Make em bleed. Real hard. Cut a path of destruction from the war book of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Mistake 2, letting the press and the public know what is going on.
Posted by Musty2U

Oh yea, this would work real well. You think they hate us now? If you do something like this we'll be at war for thousands of years. Of course you don't care it's only business as usual! Speking of which I recently bought a dress shirt. Got it home and it's made in Viet Nam. That sure honors the 58,000+ doesn't it, Morons!!! Oh well you know business, the first to want a war and the second to open up the new markets, Doh?!

[feelfree1]

If ROBERT H. REID, the author of this article, were to experience having a group of heavily armed invaders bomb his neighborhood, detain him for a while without cause or due process, maybe torture him a bit, I wonder how long he would give the brutal invaders to "Get it Right", as he puts it?

What if his 14 year old daughter was gang-raped, executed, and her corpse burned by these depraved criminal invaders, such as we have witnessed in the town of Mahmoudiya, Iraq?

I wonder how many "Do-Overs" that this author might suggest under these kinds of circumstances?

Whose blood and treasure is this author prepared to sacrifice, in order to ensure that the U.S. will "Get It Right In Iraq"?

What makes this author think that we might hope for a favorable result from an illegal, fraud/greed-based war of aggression against a sovereign nation?

[musty2u]

Mistake 1, killing only the extremists. Make em bleed. Real hard. Cut a path of destruction from the war book of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Mistake 2, letting the press and the public know what is going on.

[scott4261]

This war was a colossal error in judgment. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden couldn't have conspired to attack the U.S. because they hated each other. Saddam was secular and Osama is a religious extremist. This war was not worth one drop of American blood. And the very occupation by the U.S. has created a vacuum for terrorist activity where there was none before.

And for what? For the benefit of Exxon/Mobile, Halliburton, KBR and the rest of the oil industry war profiteers?

There is no "getting it right." It has been wrong from the start.

[randalds]

"U.S. Trying To Get It Right In Iraq
As Fifth Year Of War Begins, Officials Insist This Security Plan Will Work"

The war is lost and it was lost the day we attacked. We never had a moral right to start this war and even if we'd had one Bush did a sh*itty job of conducting it. We never sent in enough troops and tried to fight this on the cheap. The chance for any kind of a "victory" in Iraq is long long long past. Rumsfeld allowed it turn into a civil war and now everyone there wants us out almost as badly as they want to kill each other.

This is not a war and never was one. It's a war crime. It's a bungled attempted armed robbery put on by a gang of idiot thieves known as the neocons. A hold up by a gang of buffoons. The gang who couldn't shoot straight. It would make a comical movie, if it weren't so tragically real.

[johnshaft4]

Oh please...This 'war' will suddenly end once Hallibrton successfuly flees the country to Dubai and absconds with the $2.7 Billion in overcharges that they looted from us. This 'war' is about maximizing kickbacks to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, etc. from war profiteers/criminals like Blackwater USA, Parsons, etc. The longer this 'war' dragged on, the more cash is stuffed into the pockets of the Bush adminisrtation con artists derived from the blood of our troops.