Well they won't run out of supplies as long as they can always steal a few tons from unguarded ammo dumps. They've already done it once. They might be able to do it again.
Deck, the journal editorial i posted speaks directly to some of the concerns you have. But the more we learn about the insurgency, the more Mr. Anderson's analysis has proven true. The latest evidence comes from a batch of intelligence documents reported in last week's U.S. News & World Report. Reporter Edward Pound cites U.S. documents saying "former regime elements" are behind most of today's terror attacks in Iraq. He quotes one document as noting that Saddam and his allies "appear to have planned for an insurgency before the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom." Months before the Coalition invasion, members of Saddam's intelligence service and Fedayeen were planning how to build roadside bombs and to target convoys and such soft targets as water plants and oil pipelines. All of this has strategic and political consequences. One is that the troubles in Iraq aren't a matter of starry-eyed nation-building gone awry, as some conservative second-guessers now suggest. Most Iraqis really do want to build a free country. But they are opposed by an entrenched, ruthless Baathist network that is akin to the Mafia. These elements can't be bargained with, or lured into elections. They have to be killed. Imagine if the Nazi SS still had sanctuaries in Germany in 1947; no one would be thinking it had to be given a place in a future Adenauer government. This also suggests that the number of U.S. troops on the ground matters much less than the intelligence our forces can get from Iraqis. We could have half a million troops there and they wouldn't do much good if they didn't know where to find the "former regime elements." The Pentagon strategy of training Iraqis to fight with us is exactly correct, even if the effort began much later than it should have. The largest lesson concerns the will of the U.S. political class to prevail. Especially now that the U.S. election is over, it'd be nice to think that we could forge a consensus directed at victory, rather than at domestic score-settling. Everyone claims to like that Saddam was deposed, but it becomes clearer every day that his forces aren't yet beaten. Along with the imported terrorists, those forces are trying to make Iraq their Stalingrad, where they can outlast America. If they succeed, it won't matter a whit that John McCain lacked "confidence" in Donald Rumsfeld. When these columns endorsed the war in Iraq, we didn't sign up for a short or easy war. We signed up to support whatever it takes to win. No war ever goes as planned, and Iraq is no exception. But surely we can all admit that when we see those enemy assassins on our front pages, we are staring at what would be the consequences of U.S. defeat.
No, actually it does not. It doesn't talk about what might have happened if we had a sufficient amount of troops and then not a bunch of monkey-idiots running things right after/during the war, it talks as if we would have a sufficient amount after the fact it wouldn't have made a difference. I don't understand how you even found these passages to be in any way exculpatory, either. "Oh, well since we didn't have good intelligence anyway it wouldn't have mattered." We didn't have good intelligence because "we" thought we'd be welcomed as liberators and in and out in a few months, despite the fact that "we" were told othersise, by ourselves - the height of arrogance and stupidity.
Realistically all we can do hang tough and endure a lot of death and hardship for the forseeable future. We have a president with a new four year term so he can take all the criticism without consequence, unless you think he considers his place in history a consequence. So here's the plan as I see it: 1. Hunker down and fortify, more armor, more security checks, more bunkers. 2. More intelligence, spread a lot of money around for information. We need to find the assholes organizing these attacks. 3. Better PR, we should own the public air waves and jam any outside intererence. Play up the fight for Iraqi soverenty. villify those that kill civilians, show the the efforts being made at civil reconstruction, have Bush speak and translated promising our intention is only the liberation of the Iraqi people. Why why why would would we allow the press to release a story this week that Saddam supports the insurgencey? That MF needs a one week trial and then needs to be hung in the public square..right now! That would be the biggest statement we could make. Release the full chronical of his abuses later, years later if need be but we need some summary justice for the people. Or (here's my out of the box thought) Announce that in order to deal with the Sunni insurgency we are negotiating a strategic partnership with Iran to assist the securing democratic elections. It placates the Shiites, scares the crap out of the Sunni's, establishes a new working relationship with Iran and allows us to influence the direction of the inevitable Islamic government because Iraq will never, never have a secular system.
Basso; The problem with this argument is that it completely ignores the complexity and diversity of the insurgency. As have been repeatedly noted perhaps the most die hard part of it are Zarqari's foreign fighters. I agree the Baathists were planning an insurgency campaign, which many military advisors had predicted and warned Rumsfeld and Co. about, but the influx of foreign groups have particularly made this conflict bloody. You're also forgetting Sadr's Mahdi Militia which have also added another vexing element to the mix. These three groups, secular primarily Sunni Baathists, Islamic fundamentalists foreign fighters and Shiite fundamentalists Mahdi Militia, are not natural allies and are more inclined to be antagonists. If if was just a matter of Baathists holdovers the insurgency would be over since they would have practically no support both inside and outside Iraq. Instead though we have a stew of insurgents representing different interests groups and able to draw on support from different sectors. The only thing that seems to keep them on the same side is hatred of us.
Well technically he still wouldn't be President yet, so... Anyway, the situation ont he ground would be similar in the short term. However, the key difference is that the incompetent people who are responsible for this disaster, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Libby, Abrams, Hadley, et al, and ultimately Bush, would have been held accountable for the biggest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam and the waste of billions of dollars and thousands of lives. However, enough people chose not to do so in November so it is not worth speculating about, really. We broke it, we bought it, and we went back to the store again, willingly.
Welp, playing Armchair General, I see problems all the way down to the squad level Our troops are outgunned in countless firefights and there is simply no reason for it. RPG's are a dime a dozen and turn Humvees into shrapnel, armored or not. In close fights where its rapid-firing explosive effects trump the garden hose effects of bullets; think Mogadishu and now Afghanistan. Why are our troops still using M-16's? They aren't designed for urban warfare and only superior training, communications and close air support keeps us from loosing every individual firefight. The M-16 has an effective range of 550 meters, which in open terrain is great, but in close combat doesn't lay down enough lead, period. A larger caliber is desperately needed, but our troops don't make excuses and aren't making enough noise about the problem like they did with the lack of armor protection. Hell, the WWII Sten gun would be better suited for the current conflict. M-16's poke tiny holes in cinderblocks, and we need weapons that bust down walls. The answer, in my humble opinion is the Barrett XM109, a 25mm light cannon that makes big holes and busts just about anything at a range of 2000 meters. But you go to war with the Army you have, I suppose... Further, all supply convoys need armored escort. Our soft underbelly has been exposed for all the world to see and will be attacked until we show that the U.S. military will swing a big hammer every time they try it. Armor is about the only defense to IED's, that and maybe some creative thinking when it comes to the roads taken and the timing of their missions. This isn't rocket science, this is common sense. That we've waited so long to protect these kids, who have little combat training and are mostly part timers is ridiculous and irresponsible. Perhaps if Rumsfeld were signing those condolence letters he'd see who is paying for these simple mistakes. Much better intel is needed, which I don't know if we're capable of at this point... I can't even begin to imagine the chaos in the Pentagon right now being pressured to restructure itself in the middle of a war, Porter Goss is cleaning house in the CIA when it needs to be at 100% (cleaning house may be necessary, who knows what they are really up to) The insurgency has already driven a large wedge between our troops and the people of Iraq. It's impossible to defeat an enemy you can't find... There are likely a few Vietnam vets who will tell you the same
'Best trained, best equipped' baloney WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- In the three years immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States, a nation of 132 million people with a gross domestic product of less than $100 billion, produced the following to win World War II: 296,429 aircraft, 102,351 tanks, 87,620 warships, 372,431 artillery pieces and 2,455,694 trucks. Compare those heroic achievements to the current, dismal supply record as the U.S. war in Iraq is fast approaching its third year and the United States, now a nation of nearly 300 million with defense spending in excess of half a trillion dollars: Only 5,910 of the 19,584 Humvees U.S. troops in Iraq today depend upon are protected with factory-installed armor; 8,002 of the 9,128 medium and heavyweight trucks transporting soldiers and supplies in that war zone are without armor. Because of the incompetence or indifference of this nation's civilian leadership of the war, Americans in Iraq are tonight living with an increased risk of death in Iraq. All the official transcripts of White House signing ceremonies for every defense spending bill, all the presidential proclamations for Veterans Day and every prepared statement by the secretary of defense before a congressional committee include the same stock phrase. U.S. troops are invariably referred to as "the best trained, best equipped" ever. Best equipped? To call today's American troops Iraq "best equipped" is more than a counterfeit exaggeration, it is bilge, baloney. An America coming out of the Great Depression somehow found the leadership and the will to build and to deploy around the globe 2.5 million tanks in the same period of time that the incumbent American government has failed to get 30,000 fully armored vehicles to Iraq. The Bush administration has appropriated $34.3 billion on a theoretical missile defense system -- which proved again this week to be an expensive dud in its first test in two years, when the "kill vehicle" never got off the ground to intercept the target missile carrying a " mock" bomb -- but has been able up to now, according to congressional budget authorities, to spend just $2 billion to armor the vehicles of Americans under fire. Nobody has been more persistent in holding the Pentagon and the White House accountable than maverick Mississippi Democrat Rep. Gene Taylor, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. "When I visit Iraq," says Taylor, "I ride around in an armored vehicle, and I am sure the secretary (of defense) does, as well. That should be the single standard: If it is good enough for the big-shots, it is good enough for every American soldier." The armor is truly a matter of life and death, as the Mississippi congressman explains: "Half of all our casualties, half of all our deaths and half of all our wounded are the direct result of improvised explosive devices [IEDs, or homemade bombs]." But when Washington officials visit Iraq, their traveling security includes not only heavily armored vehicles, but also radio-signal jammers, which can disable the IEDs. What makes Taylor authentically angry is the inexcusable failure of the U.S. brass -- Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he names -- to provide radio jammers (which cost $10,000 each) to the fewer than 30,000 U.S. military vehicles in Iraq. How many U.S. vehicles are now equipped with jammers? The Pentagon insists the figure is classified. According to Taylor, the number is " miniscule." But because he is offended by visiting corporate CEOs and deputy assistant secretaries of weights and measures getting better protection than Marine lance corporals and Army privates, Taylor would not appreciate that funds for the jammers have probably already been dedicated to underwriting the next failed missile defense test. "A jammer costs about $10,000, and it probably costs about $10,000 to bury a dead GI. I believe Americans would rather the spend the $10,000 to prevent the GI's funeral being held." Gene Taylor is right. Every American has a moral obligation to make certain that the nation's troops are truly the world's " best equipped." http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/20/best.trained/index.html
