Obviously every time you get a weakening of the coalition, it highlights the lack of international support for the U.S. mission. |
On a day-to-day basis, the overall level of security is obviously low. We can't secure the airport road, can't stop the incoming into the Green Zone, can't stop the killings and kidnappings, |
Our peace efforts are perceived throughout the region and Iraq as weak and dishonest and the United States is viewed as little more than Israel's proxy. |
People with antiwar views will see this as confirmation of all their conspiracy theories about the war. And that's at least partly because the government didn't get its facts straight. |
Serving soldiers develop a tremendous sense of obligation to their comrades, and are trained to see the mission through. They know the military and the risk, and they have already chosen to serve their country. |
That doesn't mean the potential should be minimized. We know these states can achieve technical surprise. |
The (United States) needs to stop issuing such nonsense as soon as possible. They have so little credibility that they can breed nothing but further distrust. |
The best thing we can do is to make sure that our training helps them to create truly national military forces and truly national police forces because that then takes away any sense that one needs militias to provide security. |
The fact is this was a truly major failure in intelligence and analysis, ... But that does not mean that information was not manipulated or used to create a case for war that was much stronger than the assessments made before the conflict. |
The fact is this was a truly major failure in intelligence and analysis. But that does not mean that information was not manipulated or used to create a case for war that was much stronger than the assessments made before the conflict. |
The figures vastly overestimate the actual area of influence and are at least as meaningless as the worst reporting on pacification in Vietnam. |
The police have almost no protected vehicles, few heavy weapons similar to those of insurgents, are often located in extremely vulnerable buildings, and have weak communications. Corruption is a major issue. |
The problem with the speeches is they get gradually more realistic, but they are still exercises in spin. They don't outline the risks. They don't create a climate where people trust what's being said. |
The question is, what does victory mean? It certainly isn't the number of people we kill or detain, |
The real issue is that they have a very large booster under development. |