Sinking in the quagmire
Things aren’t going at all well in Iraq. Of course, you knew that, since you’re probably not spending your days listening to the propaganda masquarading as news over on Fox News. As this article states:
In a country the size of California, no number of soldiers can protect every hospital, hotel, bridge, electrical station, water and oil pipeline, especially from determined suicide attackers. Even if more troops could make a difference, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has refused to send them. Efforts to bring in more international troops have stumbled over the Bush administration’s unwillingness to cede control to the United Nations.
Neither can the U.S.-led force, which numbers about 150,000, police Iraq’s porous borders. Although more than 800 Iraqi border guards have been hired, a fully capable force is months away.
Abizaid and other American officials say the answer to the threat lies in turning over more security tasks to the new Iraqi police force, now 50,000 strong, and civil defense corps, whose training started this month.
But police instruction consists of just three days of basics, and many officers remain unarmed. A new Iraqi army, projected at around 40,000, is two years away.
Most Iraqis expressed horror over the U.N. bombing, which killed 23 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, and wounded more than 100. But more and more of them are cheering – or at least tolerating – attacks on American soldiers.
Just like in Vietnam, it’s a matter of winning hearts and minds, and, just like in Vietnam, the United States apparently has no idea how to do that.
