THIS IS WHY THE BUSH PLAN WILL FAIL:



Iraqi Sects Are Locked in Power Struggle
July 21, 2007 11:00 AM EDT
BAGHDAD - At an intersection in the Sadiyah section of the capital, near the tip of the thumb formed by a sharp bend in the Tigris River, stands a stark example of what underlies Iraq's sectarian war and why any peaceful outcome will not be determined by U.S. combat power.

On a recent afternoon, a convoy of Humvees brought Army Brig. Gen. John Campbell for a look. The deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division did not like what he saw.

To the east of a north-south boulevard the Americans have dubbed Route Spruce, Campbell surveyed the eerie emptiness of an enclave that until recently was populated mainly by Sunnis. It now resembles a ghost town.

"It looks devastated," he told an Associated Press reporter who accompanied him.

On display were rows of abandoned shops, empty homes, piles of debris. All were evidence of the retreat of hope for a reconciling anytime soon between two rival religious sects - Shiites and Sunnis - in a desperate battle for power.

Here, you can sense the quandary facing the Bush administration, bedeviled by an unpopular war with no end in sight after more than four years and at least 3,631 U.S. military deaths.

The Sunnis in Sadiyah have been driven away - Campbell called it a "purge" - by encroaching extremists of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that Campbell says is using gangland-style tactics to gain ground. Sunni extremists affiliated with the al-Qaida terrorist group are beginning to slip into the same neighborhood.

The problems in Sadiyah show how complex this war is. They also show why many U.S. military officers in Iraq believe they must sustain the troop buildup - despite strong opposition by many in Congress - well beyond September. That is when an important review of the buildup's results is due.

And they expose the deep divisions in the Iraqi government, including a persistent fear among the majority Shiites that the Sunnis are determined to regain the dominant position they held under the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

On Saturday, a group of American officers led by the 1st Cavalry's other deputy commanding general, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, met at an American base in the southern reaches of Sadiyah with Khalid H. Rasheed, an adviser to the Sunni deputy prime minister, Salam al-Zubaie. Brooks pressed the case for Iraqi government action in Sadiyah as well as in the even more troublesome area of Doura, just to the east.

Brooks and Col. Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which is in charge in Sadiyah and throughout a larger area of southern Baghdad known as Rashid, made the case to Khalid for the national government to hire more local Sunnis as police and to improve local public services.

"There's not enough Iraqi Army (troops) to go around," Gibbs told the AP, so the government needs to authorize more Sunni volunteers for the police force. Also, the government needs to put more money into rebuilding the area, starting with electricity, water and sewage services that have been devastated, he said.

The American military can help in the short term, but they cannot be expected to provide the ultimate answer. "It has to be an Iraqi solution," Gibbs said.

What Brooks and Gibbs heard from Khalid, a Sunni, was a familiar complaint, that the problem is with the Shiites.

"The root of the problem is related directly to the prime minister himself," Khalid said, referring to Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite. "Sectarian-driven advisers" are steering the prime minister away from an accommodation with the Sunnis and delaying efforts to improve conditions in Sadiyah, Khalid said.

So when local Sunnis volunteer to join forces with the Americans against al-Qaida, al-Maliki's advisers tell him, "`OK, look, it's a plot to topple you or overthrow the government,'" Khalid said, speaking through an interpreter.

In a similar vein, the Sunni commander of Iraqi Army forces in the area, Brig. Gen. Feras Abdul Qader, told Campbell during his visit on Thursday that Shiites in Sadiyah are complicit in helping the Mahdi Army extremists to drive out the Sunnis, whose homes are then sold by the Mahdi Army to Shiite families.

Feras said the Shiite locals are either collaborating with the extremists or are cowering in fear."Either way, they are helping the insurgents - either directly or indirectly," Feras said through an interpreter.

the reality is gene YOU WANT US TO LOSE THIS WAR becouse if we don't you will look like more of an idiot than you already do.


the democrats want us to lose so they can get a man/woman(any one but that idiot hillary) in the white house.

Reply By: danielost Posted: Saturday, July 21, 2007
The reality is gene YOU WANT US TO LOSE THIS WAR because if we don't you will look like more of an idiot than you already do.


The Reality is that we have lost this war and you and Bush are too stupid to know it!

the reality is that the boots on the ground says it is bad but we can still win.

that congress has set the goals too high.

Reply By: danielost Posted: Saturday, July 21, 2007
the reality is that the boots on the ground says it is bad but we can still win.


WRONG.., WE can not settle the Civil war that is responsible for 85-90 % of the fighting. Even our military leaders have said these in NO military answer to the sectarian violence. The government of Iraq is not able or willing to make the changes to try and bring the factions together. Each one want to CONTROL Iraq and they are not willing to share power and work together. WE CAN NOT produce a WIN with the Surge!

The Boots on the ground that say we can win WANT to believe that because otherwise they must admit all the sacrifice was for nothing which is the case. The polls that have been taken of the military in Iraq show only about 1/3, the same portion as people in the U.S., believe this war was something we should have become involved in.

I have still not heard a single reason WHY we should remain in Iraq and sustain the causalities and injuries as well as spend $12 Billion per month since the Iraqi PM has said his military can defend Iraq?

The other comments we are beginning to hear is that is the Surge in some areas does reduce the attacks, that means we must MAINTAIN our troop presence in that area. If the Surge is truly solving the problems that create the sectarian violence, the we do not need to keep the larger numbers on troops in the areas after the attacks are down. What we are saying so long as we keep the increased military pressure on a specific area the groups will choose to lay low. The problem with that is the REASON for the attacks in the first place has not ENDED and we have resolved NOTHING! Only the Iraq people with their military and police can deal with the sectarian violence. I have no problem with us helping them fight foreign terrorist operating within Iraq but the control of the populated areas of Iraq must be turned over to the Iraqi Military and people!

General seeks troop cut in northern Iraq By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
37 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - In a move that could portend a strategy change, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq said Sunday he has proposed reducing his troop levels and shifting next year to missions focused less on direct combat.

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Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon told The Associated Press that if current trends hold, he would like to begin this troop reduction and change in mission in Ninevah province, where he said Iraqi army forces already are operating nearly independently. He has proposed shifting the province to Iraqi government control as early as August.

Ninevah's capital is Mosul, the country's third largest city.

If put in place, Mixon's approach would not necessarily mean an overall reduction in U.S. troops early next year. It could mean shifting several thousand troops from Mixon's area to other parts of Iraq for some months.

That, however, could mark the beginning of a phased move away from the heavy combat role that U.S. troops have played, at a cost of more than 3,600 U.S. deaths, for more than four years. That, in turn, could lead to the first substantial U.S. troop reductions beginning in the spring or summer — a far slower timetable than many in Congress are demanding.

Mixon is not the only U.S. commander contemplating a repositioning or reduction of U.S. troops in the months ahead.

Col. John Charlton, commander of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, who leads a task force of 6,000 U.S. soldiers in a section of Anbar province that includes Ramadi, said in an interview Friday that by January he might be ready to take a 25 percent troop cut if the Iraqi police, numbering about 6,000 now, are made stronger by then.

"The police are the keys to maintaining security from al-Qaida," Charlton said.

Mixon acknowledged that a U.S. shift in northern Iraq meant risking gains made over recent years. But he said it would have important political benefits in Baghdad.

"To be perfectly frank with you, it puts the Iraqi central government in a position of having to assume responsibility for the security situation," Mixon said in a telephone interview from his headquarters at Camp Speicher, near the city of Tikrit.

It is not clear whether the government will be capable of fulfilling that responsibility as early as next year.

Mixon also has proposed allowing Ninevah province to hold elections either late this year or early in 2008. This would ease the transition from U.S. control, he said.

"It certainly would make sense to tie the two fairly closely together," Mixon said, because it would provide political reinforcement for an important shift in security responsibility.

The government in Baghdad has failed thus far to pass legislation enabling provincial elections nationwide. That is one of the benchmarks the government set for itself this year and one that Congress wants to see accomplished by September.

Mixon said he thinks individual provinces should hold elections when they are ready, rather than wait for all 18 provinces to do so at once.

Mixon said Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top day-to-day U.S. commander in Iraq, has agreed with his proposal, which he called a contingency plan subject to further approval.

There are nearly 24,000 U.S. troops in Mixon's area of responsibility. It stretches north from Baghdad to the Turkish border, including the semiautonomous Kurdish region where three provinces — Dahuk, Irbil and Sulaimaniyah — already have returned to Iraqi government control.

Mixon said he might be able to reduce that total by one-half in the 12 months to 18 months after beginning a transition in January.

U.S. commanders in Baghdad and areas south of the capital have said in recent days that it is too early to say how long the current U.S. troop buildup should be maintained. Yet many lawmakers in Washington are pressing for a change in direction as early as September. That is the month when Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are due to report to President Bush and Congress on how the troop buildup is working.

Mixon's plan suggests the possibility of a new direction for U.S. strategy. But it is not the first time that senior U.S. commanders have proposed troop reductions and shifts in mission, only to be stopped by an unforeseen surge in insurgent violence.

Last year, for example, the U.S. military was planning to reduce its forces from 15 brigades to 10 or 12 brigades. The idea was scrapped last summer. In January, Bush ordered a boost from 15 brigades to 20.

In the interview, Mixon said he is troubled by a political debate in Washington that appears to him to oversimplify the Iraq problem. He said the U.S. needs a strategy for protecting the gains it has made in Iraq, even as it transitions control to the Iraqi government.

"I don't want to stay here any longer than we absolutely have to," he said. "Neither does anybody else. But we understand the investment we've made in this place and how important it would be to have at least some type of stability in Iraq prior to us leaving in large numbers."

Northern Iraq is a diverse area with problems not felt elsewhere in the country. That includes the threat of a large-scale incursion by the Turkish military to drive out Kurdish separatists whom Turkey's government considers terrorists. Mixon said he does not foresee such a crisis.

"I'm not alarmed about it at all," he said. "I think that will be worked out in the long run."

The Kurdish rebel commander, in an AP interview Friday, said he believed the Turkish military will launch a long-anticipated offensive against separatist bases in northern Iraq shortly after Sunday's general elections in Turkey.

But Murat Karayilan, the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, denied charges by Turkey's government that his group was using its bases in Iraq to launch attacks against Turkish forces.

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has threatened to go into northern Iraq if talks with Iraq and the U.S. after the elections fail to produce effective measures against Kurdish guerrillas.

Erdogan's ruling party is likely to win a majority of seats in the parliamentary vote.

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That is not what the most senior Generals in Iraq said today on the sunday news programs! They are talking about high troop levels for another 5 years!

so the story said that the troops may be moved to another area.

Can you show us what exactly these "generals" said, because you have a track record of misrepresenting what people say.  But once again I have already showed what Crocker really said instead of your one-sided analysis.

two generals according to fox said they need 2 to 3 years.

one general is ready to start cutting troops.

i don't know how many area generals there are in iraq

Blah blah blah. I tire of shooting you down Col. You are a sore loser and a joke. You couldn't defend an innocent guy in a no-crime-commited court case.

What a group of stupid ill informed idiots!

I'm happy you finally looked in the mirror and realized how stupid ill informed you are. Didn't know there were more of you though.