Gloom is deeper in Baghdad now than at any time since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Even Iraqi officials in the relative safety of the Green Zone, once invariably optimistic, are beginning to despair. It is not only the increase in the number of suicide bombs. There is a water shortage in some parts of the city. Electricity supply is down to five hours a day....
We have been in Control for 24 months, and this is all we have been able to achieve, 5 hours of Electricity.
Nobody knows how many soldiers and policemen actually turn up for work. Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish political leader, says that an army unit supposedly numbering 2200 men was sent to Kirkuk. The Kurds counted them: there were just 300 men in the unit. Nobody knew what had happened to the other 1900. "They say that there are 150,000 men in the army and police," Othman says, "but I believe the real figure is 40,000." The rest either appear only to draw their pay or never existed in the first place....
When 2,200 is only 300 we have real trouble. This again points out the lie that the Bush Administration keeps telling, that Iraq is getting close to defending itself.
What a freaking mess.
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