In all fairness, especially to you guys currently serving in the military, it's far too early to tell what will happen.

And who are we to believe anyways? The US government? The local newspaper? CNN? Nobody will know until the last American/allied troop leaves the area. If a democratic system holds then it was a worthy cause and a job well done despite the sacrifice. If it fails soon after than it was an exercise in futility and a total waste just like Viet Nam.

Only time will tell.

The only thing this testimony relates to is the military situation as it relates to threats to the US. I don't think anything in there predicts the outcome for the long term.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Sorry, I don't have the patience to read a 21 page document, but it seems extremely obvious that things are getting much better in Iraq. The "insurgency" seems essentially defeated at least as far as local forces are concerned. I don't think the foreign forces will be far behind.

That is not to say everything is wine and roses and that there is not years of heavy lifting and more casualties ahead, but if we stay the course I think it is very likely we will be successful. By successful I mean that Iraq will have an imperfect, self sustaining democracy functioning over the next few years. More importantly, they will export that democracy to other Arab countries.

I really don't put much faith in the CIA in this regard, since most of that agency has been against the war to the extreme of trying to undermine the policies of the Commander in Chief. I can't address the DIA, but I would imagine the same description applies there.

As usual, the MSM has missed the story.

I would expect us to start withdrawing forces, maybe even right after the next election which is currently slated for late this year, though that schedule will likely slip.

I don't know what makes you think that the military is set against it's commander in Chief in the war in Iraq. As for the report, there were less than 3 pages of testimony about Iraq. I'd suggest reading it before you say that the insurgency has been defeated.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I never said the military was out to undermine the Iraq policy and Bush reelection. I said the CIA.

No secret there. Just look at the NY Times articles prior to the election with their brave (traitorous?) CIA leakers. Look at how Porter Goss is trying to clean house there.

In terms of Intelligence, the CIA seems largely dysfunctional. I don't think shuffling an org chart at the top will fix anything for some reason.

Again, I can't comment on the DIA. I don't know much about them.

"I said the CIA."

Actually you said you thought the same thing would apply to the DIA, which is DoD. I won't argue with the idea that there are massive issues with CIA that render it difficult to assess the validity of their work.

Read the few pages in the report. Square that with the recent coordinated attacks on Abu Ghraib. I'll give you the first line of the Iraq section of the report.

"The insurgency in Iraq has grown in size and complexity over the past year."

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

art you should read the section on iraq. it basically cuts against everything you said in your post.

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f/k/a mclamb6

Are you guys actually going to make me read this? Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

If you let me not read it I will concede that it cuts against what I have said. I doubt it will change my opinion since the facts on the ground since the election are extremely compelling.

Three months ago I would much been easier to convince. When was it actually composed?

I really don't trust our intelligence agencies to get stuff like this right. They do a lot of good work, but keeping a thumb on the pulse of foreign populations isn't one of them lately.

i don't know when it was composed, but i don't think sources get much more legit than this. moreover, there are headings for each issue, so you can scan to iraq very quickly then go back for the rest.

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f/k/a mclamb6

I'm having trouble believing or understanding you here Art. Conservatives complain about the MSM having a liberal bias. But when the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency testifies about, among other things, the status of the insurgency in Iraq, you think it's a waste of your time to read it, and you point us to reports in the news to show what's really going on? This testimony was given in mid-March of this year. It is pretty fresh.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Sorry, I don't have the patience to read a 21 page document, but it seems extremely obvious that things are getting much better in Iraq.

Maybe if you're only listening to one-sided reports.

Cathy, you must be so happy. President Bush could fail. And, he deserves to fail because he lied!!!! There is still a chance for you to have success in Iraq despite the elections, the overthow of Saddan and the killing of his sons. Better go out and celebrate.

a) i'm not cathy

b) what are you talking about?

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f/k/a mclamb6

How long you got? If you look at Vietnam things were "ok" there from the mid 50's to the early 70s. Once we pulled out down she fell.

We could look at Irag a a domino. If she stays democratic then maybe the rest of the region will fall in too, but if she falls despotism reigns again. What do you think has a better chance of happening knowing the history of the region? Without US troops there how long to the country dissolves in a civil war? BTW for some strange reason the army is having trouble meeting it's recruiting needs...

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

I took a good look at the document, and it certainly is a high quality piece of analysis. I can't dispute anything in it. Certainly the author or authors are more qualified and knowledgable than I.

There are positive and negatives in the section about Iraq. It is not forward looking at all. The question in the thread is whether things are getting better or worse. My answer is that things are getting better. There is plenty of support for that opinion in this summary, though there is support for the opposite opinion as well.

I give the most weight to the feedback directly from the troops on the ground. Every single thing I read on line or hear on the radio that comes directly from the troops rather than filtered by the MSM is very positive.

What I see missing from the Iraq reports, and has been missing from reports during my entire lifetime regarding South America, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and Afghanistan is the power of the concepts of freedom and self determination to those that have never had that luxury. The media and the American public keeps making this same underestimation over and over again.

Oops! Messed up on my reading. Which means that the original post may have been just as meaningless as my understanding of names.

What I was suggesting is that there is a portion of the anti-war, anti-Bush crowd that does not want to see success in Iraq because it would be the factual refutation of their reason for being. It probably won't end up being that, of course. After all, the systematic murder of 3,000,000 by the Communists in SE Asia did not change the minds of the so called peace activists, the overwhelming majority of whom remain quite firm in their belief that they did the right thing by opposing US military action in SE Asia. If such a dramatic failure does not change minds, why would a more subtle success on the part of the opposition.

When you say "...the Army is having trouble meeting its recruiting needs..." are you talking about ours (US) or theirs (Iraq)?

If you are talking about ours, then I am not sure that some analysts are not reading too much into the effects of the Iraq war/occupation on recruiting. The relationship between a good economy and poor military recruiting (and vice-versa) has always been pretty strong. In other words, if a kid graduating high school gets (or can get) a good civilian job, then they are much less likely to join the military. Same thing holds true for retention--if a military pilot can get an airline job, then they are likley to get out. If the airlines aren't hiring, then they are likely to stay in. AFAIK, the front-line fighting units like the Rangers, et al, aren't having trouble getting volunteers.

I'm not trying to say that the war doesn't factor in at all, just saying that there are more dynamics in play than the war--the improved economy being primary among them.

Are you aware that something like 4,000,000 civilians died during the Vietnam War?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Well, I know that the Communists killed about 3,000,000 in the three years after the war "ended". I know that the Communists killed almost one tenth of the population of Hue in the few weeks that they held the city after Tet. So, it would not surprise me that they managed to kill 4,000,000 civilians since it has always been official Communist policy to take innocent life whenever possible.

But, you have to break tens of millions of eggs to create the workers paradise.

I think you'll find that it wasn't the Communists who killed those 4,000,000.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

it has always been official Communist policy to take innocent life whenever possible

yep, it's right there in the communist manifesto, page 46, I believe.*











*this post in no way condones or endorses communism

First, I talking about deeds, not words. The Communists did kill 100,000,000 last century. Did you miss that? Or, are you just okay with it?

Second, Communist doctrine, like Fascist doctrine, subordinates the rights of the individual, including the right to life, to the state. Therefore, the deeds of the Communists do, rather directly, follow their ideology.

So let me get this straight.
When Vietnamese/Chinese/Burmese commies kill their own people they are evil commie bastards that should be murdered, but when you, Americans, go half way around the world and kill Vietnamese/Chinese/Burmese people you're actually helping them?

How is this related to a topic at hand anyways?

Oh, and from your posts about Communism it is very clear you know nothing about it.

"AFAIK, the front-line fighting units like the Rangers, et al, aren't having trouble getting volunteers"

It's not Rangers we need. It's regular Marines and Soldiers to fill all the various billets required. We are having some trouble with recruiting and some trouble with retention. Plenty of people joined the military before 9/11, not really thinking they'd have to go to war. Now that we are, some of those ones don't want to stay in for extended deployments, and lot's of people that might have joined, don't want to because they know exactly where they're heading.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)