US has lost control in Iraq, says military strategist

[bemildred]

---

HARLAN ULLMAN: We lost control of events on the ground probably in April or May of 2003. And it's taken a long time for that recognition to dawn in the White House.

The President and the administration has refused to recognise reality. Iraq is a disaster. It is a disaster at every level, and to think that they've got a functioning government and to think that the situation is better today than it was in 2003 or 2004, or 2005, is unbelievable.

We have a catastrophe on our hands and of course we've got to make course corrections and the only guy in town who seems not to be able to recognise that, sadly, is the President.

And so under these circumstances, it's very difficult to move forward because of the power of the President, and how you get the President to change his or her mind, in this case his mind, is extremely difficult.

abc.net.au

[jwirr]

1. That was blatantly obvious when the pictures of the armory burning

were made public.

[keta11]

2. This is the guy who invented the "Shock and awe" strategy!

[teryang]

3. The cost of doing business...

I think that he makes some good points but the alleged divide between W and HW is nonsense. Baker works for the same group of elite bankers and oil company shareholders that are on the take in Iraq. They believe that they can pull it off, that is take all the Iraqi resources, make them a colony and get them to pay off their pre-war debts that Baker negotiated, and create an oil and money river from Baghdad to New York and DC.

The casualty count doesn't bother them at all but its creating a rift between the uniformed ground forces, the defense contractors and their banking and energy backers.

Others see this as a defeat, they feel that they are on the cusp of the greatest colonial prize currently on the earth.

[bemildred]

4. It all depends on what (or who) you consider "fungible" I guess ... nt

[katty]

5. Close family member has a client/soldier just back fr Iraq and

this man, her client said he was so glad to finally be out of Iraq alive and for good (he's been there for several years). He said it is so horrible, Americans don't see most of what has been/IS going on 24/7 because of our sanitized press-unlike what the rest of the world reads/sees. The violence is way beyond bad and there is absolute no security-anywhere-the 'green zone' so-termed security is a joke.