I don't know if it is that bad, depends on the arrangement we have with the tribes in the region.

Our troops were invited into the area by the tribes. They're likely to kick Al Qaeda back out themselves if the fundamentalists re-infiltrate, now that their foundation is now nonexistent. The question is how much support the area gives to the Sunni element of the insurgency, rather than the fundamentalists, who they openly invited us to kick out.

Who's to say we will not go right back at them. A new operation just started similar to the Anbar one. I think we know what's up. The LA times can keep hoping for despair and destruction ....

Call me naive and old fashioned but I really do not like it when some military people are quoted in the media criticizing the actions of other military people. Especially in the current climate. If what they say is correct - they should be saying it in the chain of command - not the media.

I just don't like it.

The LAT article by reporters Mark Mazzetti and Solomon Moore is head-and-shoulders above most dispatches. Moore is actually in Anbar province! Multiple sources are quoted, and most are even named! Sure, it's framed as "The US Military is Losing," and implicitly assumes that all the problems are on the Army/Marine/Iraqi Gov't sides, and none on the FRE/jihadis'. But there is real information here, and emphasis on a serious issue--the limits to US actions imposed by the numbers of available soldiers--that policymakers and informed citizens should know about.

It's reasonable to suppose that AQ's thinkers have appreciated this point for some time now. It provides the strategic context for appreciating the enemy's 3-11 (2004) Madrid victory. They used their intimate knowledge of Western societies to determine Spain's vulnerability, then worked through local proxies to swing a close election from Aznar to Zapatero. Beyond the propaganda value of 194 dead, this denied about 1400 soldiers to the Coalition (al-Jazeera gloating here ).

From Mosul, embedded reporter Michael Yon's latest dispatch reflects on the way most news stories get processed in Iraq, and then reported in the U.S. Unlike the LAT staff, but reminiscent of WW2's Ernie Pyle, Yon has chosen the side of the democratic elements of Iraqi society, and thus the Coalition.

A useful contrast for the enquiring reader.

Its a QUAGMIRE. Withdraw all of our troops now and negotiate with the insurgents

The debate between "clear and hold" versus "search and destroy" is strategic.

But there's a policy consideration, too. The pundits refer to the "flypaper" policy -- I wonder if leaving the area open to lure foreign nationals across borders isn't part of an ongoing policy effort to expose Syrian and Saudi terror factions in those nations to world public scrutiny. "The U.S. is in Iraqi nation-building, but we killed and captured THESE guys red-handed killing orphans and desecrating the mosques..."

A one-time release of such info after Fallujah might be some sort of fluke. But if it happens again and again after Fallujah, the Matador operation, and whatever is next -- even the UN might be inclined to admit the scumbags are in fact scumbags.

I wouldn't generalize about "the tribes." Clearly, some tribes support the bad guys, and some don't like them and want the Marines to get rid of them. Some tribes in the area are fighting directly against each other.

I think you make an important point that sometimes seems lost - it's the Iraqi's that will determine their future. We can help the good guys, but ultimately the responsibility for what kind of nation they end up with rests on their shoulders. There is no such thing as a turn key nation that the US can create in place and the Iraqi'd simply move into. Since Iraqi forces ultimately will win or lose the war, it makes sense to constitute a complete Iraqi security force and fight the war with us helping than to do everything ourselves, declare victory, and then turn it over to a bystander Iraqi force that will then fight the real war.

It's too easy to excuse the current situation on the ground as a simple lack of troops. We stationed a quarter million troops in Europe 20 years ago during the Cold War with the same volunteer army. I dont suppose our population has decreased since. Certainly it takes time to build new divisions, but if im not mistake it has been coming up on 4 years since 9/11 and nothing has been done in this regard. That was a political calculation. Period.

Were the entire strategy being shifted from clear and hold to search and destroy, there might be a point. But this NYT article indicates the Iraqis are starting to pick up some of the responsibility. In the mean time, there is military value in doing things that are unexpected, that make the enemy worry about something else. I would expect to see a wide variety of activities by coaltion forces. As long as Iraqi involvement is increasing and we are dictating time, place and tempo of actions, we're headed in the right direction.

While the Marines involved in Operation Matador were able to easily sweep through Western Iraq and kill and capture al Qaeda members

you should look up the definition of easy. It means something else than what you think it means.

We have seen clear and hold operations work effectively in Basra

Basra is run by the Shiite goverment or is it Shiite resistance. Doesn't really matter but the British have very little influence there.

Really, a, what is your definition? More detail, please, or you are adding very little to this comment thread. I'd say about five days to sweep through this area with light casualties and heavy casualties among the enemy woudl classify as easy among many who have served in the military.

Basra is being run by Shiites, so what's the problem here? The area is relatively secure from attacks by insurgents. Isn't that the point?

#9 There is a difference between being in Germany drink beer and ogling the local girls and being shot at. Some would even say that it is a big difference.

but we killed and captured THESE guys red-handed killing orphans and desecrating the mosques..."

So what is the diffence between those guys and US soldiers?

There is a difference ...

Good point, and those that do join in time of conflict are the highest caliber people, which makes losing them even more painfull.

So what is the diffence between those guys and US soldiers?

And there you go insulting yourself with a smear worse than anyone here could get away with without a permban.

Richard Heddleson (#10):

One interesting aside on that New York Times piece you cited, A Series of Iraqi-Led Raids Nets Hundreds of Suspects. Reporter Sabrina Tavernise’s second paragaph included

[American officials said the operation] was aimed at rooting out insurgents and closing down car bomb assembly lines in Abu Ghraib …

Her article had room for these sentences:

But recent large-scale raids, particularly by Shiite and Kurdish security forces, have raised fears in Sunni areas that nets are being cast too widely, catching many innocent Iraqis along with those who have ties to insurgents.

Colonel Talabani acknowledged that some of those swept up in the raids were probably not guilty of anything, and said that those people would be released as the group was interrogated.

One local resident, a 19-year-old vegetable seller who gave his name only as Ali, told Colonel Talabani that his friend had been arrested and had no ties to the insurgency.

and

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia… said the soldiers looked only for Sunni Arabs in their raids and ignored Shiites, according to a Web site that tracks such messages.

Unfortunately, space was too tight to include a detail that the Daily Telegraph squeezed into their coverage:

…the office of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, described the most significant breakthrough as a successful raid on a car bomb "factory". "They found sufficient bombs for 70 cars, a production line if you like," said Mr Jaafari's spokesman, Laith Kubba. "It was either the factory or one of the two factories that has caused the carnage in Baghdad."

I wonder how long it took Sabrina Tavernise to realize that mention of the discovery of a car bomb factory doesn’t square with the current implementation of the New York Times’ durable if stodgy slogan. After all, readers are easily confused by the inclusion of such irrelevant local color.

#12

The Shiite are in a holding pattern but that doesn't mean that they are not insurgents.

#14

It is no a smear, just a fact. Especially the desecrating of mosques is something that happens more by US soldiers (lets say mostly unwithingly to not make you angree)