The new Iraqi strategy

[kentuck]

A report from yesterday said that Condoleeza Rice is going to take over from Rumsfeld the rebuilding of the infrastructure of Iraq. Does this mean Bush has lost faith in Rumsfeld? Or does it mean something else? The entire Iraq strategy team seems to have done a one-eighty.

The Bush military strategists envisioned going into Baghdad the same way they went into Kabul. Cut off the head and the body would die. By capturing the capital city, they could pretend they had captured the entire country. Unfortunately, it did not go as planned in Baghdad.

Now we have troops on the perimeters of several cities in and around Bagdad and, with the Iraqi Governing Council, we are attempting to set up a "central government" just like in Washington, DC. That is the ideal for these Republicans now in charge.

However, many of the Iraqi communities are now governing themselves without any central control from Baghdad. They have re-opened their hospitals and their schools, which closed during the invasion. In a few instances, the American troops have gone in and helped paint and refurbish the schools as part of the PR campaign for the illiterate American media.

In a matter of months, perhaps weeks, the American troops will be forced to withdraw from their present positions in Baghdad and surrounding cities, simply because we no longer have the manpower to replenish GIs leaving that God-forsaken adventure. In so doing, American casualties will drop and the cities will be left to govern themselves. Both sides will profit from the decision.

As usual, George W Bush and the Repubs will attempt to take credit for the progress that has taken place in Iraq. However, the credit should go to the Iraqis that decided to govern themselves and kept the American invaders out of their towns. This will be the story in the next few weeks and months.

[Brucey]

1. They can keep spinning this thing, but as long as the media

keep showing the horror, people will tire of it. American sheeple are really something... they don't care if we bomb the hell out of some brown people, but they get very bored watching it on TV for more than a few months. Oh, and the money, the money, that bothers them some.

[jmcgowanjm]

2. GOP eliminated $ for trashtrucks & prisons n/t

[jmcgowanjm]

3. But what if the Iraqicontrolled town, say Beiji,

also contains the nation's largest refinery
and a major pipeline?

[kentuck]

4. Oh, we will secure the oil refineries...

...and try to protect the pipelines.

[jmcgowanjm]

7. We'll have to build road bypasses, increase checkpoints n/t

[ThomWV]

5. Bad Title

In order to have a new strategy on Iraq you must have had an old strategy on Iraq. The administration had no old strategy so they can not have a new strategy.

A phrase comes to mind concering the events you speak of, it is 'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic'. Seems apt.

Thom

[kentuck]

6. Good point, ThomWV...

Maybe it would be better to say they are trying to develop a strategy?