Credit to the New York Times

The NYTimes is running a series of massive articles surveying the major issues that underly the current security situation in Iraq. Tomorrow's article is an extensive look at the myriad overlapping armed groups, government, tribal, insurgent, and blends of all three, that are making efforts to restore security impossible.

Unlike the normal simplistic media representation of the forces in Iraq as four hierarchichal structures combating each other, government forces, Shia/militia, Sunni/insurgent/Al Qaeda, Kurdish Peshmerga, the picture the NYTimes paints is one of total chaos with no centralized structure and control.

Try to imagine a civil war in this context.

It's a big read, but it's one of the most complete pictures yet in the major media. (The previous two articles in the series both looked at the efforts to train and equip the police. Part 1, Part 2)

Also, Time magazine has a "day in the life" piece with a unit in Ramadi. There are some gripping sections, but it's in the summary section of page 4 where the problem really jumps out, (this is coming out of commanders in Ramadi)

The bigger problem, though, is one that few in the military command want to hear: there aren't enough troops to do the job. .... "I can't believe it each time the Secretary of Defense talks about reducing force," says a senior U.S. officer. War planners in Iraq say just getting a handle on Ramadi demands three times as many soldiers as are there now. Several U.S. commanders say they won't ask superiors for more troops or plan large-scale operations because doing so would expose problems in the U.S.'s strategy that no one wants to acknowledge. "It's what I call the Big Lie," a high-ranking U.S. commander told TIME.