While Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and the incursion in Gaza continue, the US is still busy trying to not get killed in Iraq, and today another three dozen Iraqis were killed.
In the past couple of day's the President has announced that, in an effort of avoid sending more troops into the area, he will ask the troops we currently have in place to play a little wack-a-mole.
Earlier this summer, with much fanfare, a new plan for Baghdad was announced. The Iraqi government and the US army would be putting tens of thousands of additional troops into the city to assure it's security.
We can all see how well that is working out.
So now we are going to pump more US troops into the meat grinder. To do this, without having to bring in more troops to Iraq (not that that is a viable option), we will pull forces out of the Anbar area. Even if this does have a positive effect in Baghdad, there can be little doubt that it will have a negative impact in Anbar, meaning that we will have to shift forces back there when we see a spike in activity pop up there, and then Baghdad can decay, and we can move troops back to Baghdad, then back to Anbar and so on and so on.
And, another point that no one appears to be mentioning, but should be noted.
There are, according to a number of reports, about 70,000 Iraqi troops tasked with securing Baghdad. This includes the 40,000 troops who were added in June. Their performance has been, at best, a total disaster. To correct this failure, we are now inserting an additional 4,000 men.
This is the Iraqi force that is be replacing the US, the force that must 'stand up so we can stand down'. Just another indicator that our efforts in that direction are not going so well.
Tags
Iraq
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