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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Read this

This article is getting lots of play from the lefty blogs because of the statement that Iraq is a civil war, but read the whole thing.

I think the discussion of the conduct of Iraqi forces is far more important than the (justified) frustration voiced by the American advisor.
The soldiers who came upon the car in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad were part of a joint American and Iraqi patrol, and the Americans were ready to take action. The Iraqi commander, however, taking orders by cellphone from the office of a top Sunni politician, said to back off: the car’s owner was known and protected at a high level.....

“I have personally witnessed about a half-dozen of these incidents of what I would call political pressure, where a minister or someone from a minister’s office contacts one of these Iraqi commanders,” said Lt. Col. Steven Miska,

Do you want to tell me how more "trainers" or more troops solves this? They're doing it under the current trainers' noses.

4 Comments:

  • We need to come to grips with the tribes. More on my page later today.

    By Blogger Bravo 2-1, at 9:36 AM  

  • Cool, I'll check.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:45 AM  

  • Do you want to tell me how more "trainers" or more troops solves this?

    EXACTLY! After three and a half years, why isn't the army trained? What exactly are we training them, what new things do we need to train that we haven't alread, and how will an escallation of military force facilitate that training?

    Answer: nothing. They are well trained in executing war. We could use a little more training in waging peace.

    By Blogger -epm, at 11:09 AM  

  • It's the old saw:

    The Iraqis are perfectly willing and capable of fighting for their country. They're doing it every day. The problem is their definition is distinctly different from ours.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:37 PM  

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