| "It's a race against time because by the end of this coming summer we can no longer sustain the presence we have now," said retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who visited Iraq most recently in June and briefed Cheney, Rice and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "This thing, the wheels are coming off it."
McCaffrey said Bush's strategy of building Iraqi political and security institutions makes sense, and he estimated an 80 percent chance of success. Even so, he said the fading public support represents a genuine hazard for the president: "We want to get out of this. . . . The American people are walking away from this war." |
How on earth do you get from "the wheels are coming off" to a headline of "no clear finish line"? What, when we're talking about Michael Jackson or some stupid runaway bride its OK to be sensationalist, but when we're talking about Iraq we're going to downplay the truth? Once again, up is down and left is right.
And what about the whole insurgency is in its "last throes," filled with "dead-enders," we've "turned a corner" thing? Just this:
| Q: (Off mike) -- briefly follow up, you mentioned that you're at 30 IED attacks on a weekly basis. Could you give a comparison to what that level was previously? GEN. FONTAINE: Yes, sir. It's about a hundred percent increase from last year. |
That's from a DoD press conference yesterday morning. The use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) has doubled in the last year. DOUBLED. So says Brigadier General Yves J. Fontaine, USA, Commander, 1ST Corps Support Command, Multinational Corps-Iraq. Here's more:
| Q: General, with the doubling of the IED attacks on the convoys in the past year, have you seen a proportional increase in the number of casualties on the U.S. personnel involved in those convoys? GEN. FONTAINE: No, sir. As a matter of fact, that's a good story -- the good-news story, as far as our up-armoring is concerned. Because we've up-armored our vehicles, the casualty has decreased significantly, even though the IED attack has increased significantly. So now our soldiers are safe in their humvees and their trucks, and they walk out of the incidents when the incident occurs. MR. WHITMAN: Bob? Q: Bob Burns again from AP. I'd like to follow up on that same point. During this period of increase, have you seen the increase in any particular parts of Iraq especially, geographically? GEN. FONTAINE: Well, yes, sir. The triangle is the area where this occurs. We know that some of Iraq is fairly safe, fairly secure. As you enter the triangle, this is area where IEDs occur the most. So nothing has changed as far as that's concerned. MR. WHITMAN: Okay. (Inaudible.) Go ahead -- (inaudible). Q: General, this is -- again, this is Joe Tabet with Al Hurra TV. There is -- a British report said that triple stacked anti-tank mines were reported to have been used in the Al Hadithah explosion. Is this a new kind of IED? GEN. FONTAINE: It is the first one we've encountered, I think. I'm not sure whether it is the first one that's been used, because IEDs have been in our roads for a long time. So if you're asking me the first time they used it, I don't know, because sometime we find IEDs later in the day or a month later. So -- but it is the first one that we've found of that sort. |
First let's take the good news. Although Rummy hasn't yet supplied body armor to all of our soldiers, it appears that up-armoring vehicles has been moving ahead. That's great news... even if questions remain as to why they didn't have the armor in the first place.
Now, the bad news. A new much more sophisticated and deadly IED - a "triple stacked anti-tank mine." The tactics used by the insurgency are evolving, growing more complex with each passing month. Sounds just like the last throes to me too...
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