It’s pointless to reiterate this, since the administration will never listen, but the evidence is still overwhelming that we do not have sufficient military manpower – American or Iraqi – to keep order in Iraq. Order is the essential prerequisite for elections. But order is absent – in some places terrifyingly so. Falluja has been temporarily quieted. But who will keep the peace once the troops have left? Especialy when those troops are now badly needed for outbreaks of violence and chaos in Samarra and Mosul and Ramadi, places where many insurgents have found a new home. Money quote from the Post:
The most immediate concern for the interim government is manpower. Iraq has no more than eight battalions of the newly trained troops, whose main job is to occupy cities after U.S. forces defeat insurgents. Duty in Samarra and Fallujah, which have about a half million people between them, already was stretching that force thin. Adding duty in Mosul “means you’re operating right out on the edge of what forces you have — Iraqi forces,” the U.S. official said.
American forces may be stretched thin as well. A battalion deployed outside Fallujah raced back to its Mosul base when insurgents struck, attacking in groups as large as 50 at a time, numbers not previously seen in the city, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings of Task Force Olympia, the brigade that in February replaced a much larger unit, the 101st Airborne Division.
The notion that Falluja would be one-stop shopping for insurgents was obviously, sadly, over-optimistic. So do we have enough troops to quell an insurgency that seems, even now, to be gaining strength elsewhere? And does the Bush administration have the capacity to admit past mistakes in order to prevent future ones?
QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “Clinton went back and executed that retarded guy. That said, ‘I share your values.'” – a “senior Kerry adviser,” explaining his frustrations about Kerry’s inability to connect with everyday Americans.
The Dish 