General: Insurgents crackdown in Iraq, backfiring...

[Quixote1818]

U.S. to Review Baghdad Plan, General Says


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By MICHAEL LUO
Published: October 19, 2006

BAGHDAD, Oct. 19 — The American military’s stepped-up campaign to staunch unrelenting bloodshed in the capital under an ambitious new security plan that was unveiled in August has failed to reduce the violence, a military spokesman said today.

Instead, attacks have actually jumped more than 20 percent over the first three weeks of the holy month of Ramadan, compared to the previous three weeks, said Gen. William Caldwell, the military’s chief spokesman in Iraq.

In an unusually gloomy assessment, General Caldwell called the spike in attacks “disheartening” and added that the American military was “working closely with the government of Iraq to determine how to best refocus our efforts.”

It is unclear, however, what other options might be available to American military commanders if their current efforts fail. Over the past year, American forces had begun withdrawing from large areas of the capital, encouraging Iraqi Army and police forces to take the lead. That policy, however, was followed by escalating levels of sectarian attacks, particularly after the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samara in February.

Continued:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/world/middleeast/20iraqcnd.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=27dea122a92227ce&hp&ex=1161316800&partner=homepage

[whistle]

1. It is Tet all over again

[Quixote1818]

2. Getting tough with people who are willing to die for Alla, will always

backfire. This is exactly why this war is creating more terrorism and making us less safe.

[tnlurker]

3. This is like the TET offensive

The deal with the TET offensive was not that it was a military victory for the Viet Cong but that it showed that the US government had been lying to the American people about how the war was going. Up to that point all of the official announcements were just like the ones we hear now about Iraq. All is going well. The insurgency is in nothing but a few Baathist and dead enders. We are winning. Etc. The Falcon forward base explosions last was quickly buried in the media because it would show that the insurgence can and does hit our positions at will. Nowhere in Iraq is now safe. The only thing left for the US to do is stay and die or get out.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Doncha' just love those geniuses at the Pentagon?

They sure are good at figuring things out....after the fact.

They must all be great admirers of George Armstrong Custer.

[whistle]

5. War is a Racket