The major U.S. offensive launched last weekend against insurgents in and around Baghdad has significantly expanded the military's battleground in Iraq -- "a surge of operations," and no longer just of troops, as the second-ranking U.S. commander there said yesterday -- but it has renewed concerns about whether even the bigger U.S. troop presence there is large enough.
As the U.S. offensive, code-named Phantom Thunder, has been greeted with a week of intensified fighting in areas outside the capital -- areas that the U.S. military has largely left untouched for as long as three years -- the push raised fears from security experts and officers in the field that the new attacks might simply propel the enemy from one area to another where there are not as many U.S. troops.An officer working in Arrowhead Ripper, the subsidiary offensive in Diyala province, said wearily, "We just do not have the forces in country right now to have the appropriate level of presence across the country."
..."I believe we have enough U.S. troops for this specific operation," said a U.S. military strategist there, referring to Phantom Thunder. "I do not believe we've ever had enough troops to do all of the tasks we should be doing in Iraq."
One of Petraeus's nerviest gambles is that enemy fighters will not be able to move and disrupt other areas. The biggest concern for U.S. commanders is the big northern city of Mosul, where insurgents counterattacked the last time the U.S. military conducted an operation this size, in November 2004. That is especially worrisome because the United States now has only one battalion of about 1,000 troops stationed there, far fewer than were there then.
For the 5,749th time, I hope, wish, and pray that this strategy is a success, and nothing would make me happier than to be proven wrong about this. But idiotic statements like the following give me no reason whatsoever for hope:
"The Iraqi security forces will be able to sustain and continue to improve their ability to maintain security," Odierno predicted. "They are staying and fighting. They are taking casualties."
..."This is about interdicting the accelerants of al-Qaeda," Odierno said yesterday. "I mean the truck bombs, the car bombs, the chlorine bombs that they try to do in order to harass the population and try to affect the confidence in the government of Iraq. These are the attacks that we are trying to prevent."
"[T]ry to affect the confidence in the government of Iraq?" Who is he kidding? Iraq was estimated to have a pre-war population of around 27 million people. Of those, 1.5 million have already fled the country. For those keeping score at home, that's about 5.5% of the Iraqi public. Translated to the population of the United States, that's roughly the equivalent of losing the entire population of the state of Florida.
If the entire population of the state of Florida fled to Mexico as refugees, would anyone seriously be talking about "the confidence" citizens had in the government? Really?
And its not just average Iraqis who have left. Although I can't find the link right now, a sizable percentage of the leaders of Iraq spend most of their time outside of the country. Security, it seems, is a problem even for everyone. And worse, those that have stayed mostly refuse to work with one another. If the people at the very highest levels of the Iraqi society have no faith in their government, why should anyone else?
BAGHDAD, June 20 -- Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Other senior Iraqi officials have considered resigning in recent weeks over the failures of their government to make progress after more than a year in power, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials....Maliki's political benefactor, radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has again withdrawn his followers in parliament in the wake of the Samarra bombing. The leader of Sadr's legislative bloc, Nasar al-Rubaie, said that "the Maliki government will surely collapse if the situation continues as it is right now."
Humam Hamoudi, a senior leader of another powerful Shiite faction, the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, said that "these two months will give a strong indication on the issue of his continuation, or whether we go into the crisis of looking for another prime minister."
"Everybody wants him to succeed," Hamoudi added. "Rather, I should say, many, not everybody."
Maliki's government has failed so far to push through major laws demanded by the U.S. government as a means of promoting national reconciliation. These so-called benchmarks include laws governing oil resources and the reintegration of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party into the government, and constitutional amendments to afford more influence to Sunnis.
Meanwhile, eight U.S. soldiers died in Iraq today, bringing this week's total to 30.
This really is quite simple. They live there. We do not. It is their country, not ours. No matter how great our national will, they can and will outlast us. After all, they have no choice. It is their home.
UPDATE: Oh wonderful. Those weren't even the worst of Gen. Odierno's comments. Digby has more here.
Its as if we are being run by a bunch of children on a playground.
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