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John Holusha at The New York Times

A panel of retired generals told a United States Senate committee today that sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq will do little to solve the underlying political problems in the country.

“Too little and too late,” is the way Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, a former chief of the Central Command, described the effort to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The additional troops are intended to help pacify Baghdad and a restive province, but General Hoar said American leaders had failed to understand the political forces at work in the country. “The solution is political, not military,” he said.

“A fool’s errand,” was the judgment of Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who commanded troops in the first Gulf War. He said other countries had concluded that the effort in Iraq was not succeeding, noting that “our allies are leaving us and will be gone by summer.”

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So... George what side are we on in Iraq?

Larry Johnson in No Quarter

We have four basic choices confronting us in Iraq:

1. Fight the Sunni insurgents (there are at least 15 separate groups) and risk alienating the Saudis, the Jordanians, and the Turks.
2. Fight the Shia insurgents/militia, which means we will engage 60% of Iraq's population (and strengthen the hand of Shia-led Iran).
3. Fight both the Sunni and Shia and put ourselves in the middle of the civil war.
4. Retire from Iraq and let the Sunni and Shia sort things out among their various sectarian factions.

There really are no other logical options. It looks like Bush chose Option 3.

By engaging both Sunni and Shia we will have a surge--a surge in U.S. casualties that is. But we are not going to be fighting two separate insurgencies. Nope. It is worse than that. We will be faced with in excess of 20 separate insurgent groups. Some cooperate with each other but most do not.

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Two posts on the Pelosi/Reid letter.

Read the text of the letter. Finally an Earth to Bush moment.

Here

and

Here

Is snuffing Saddam such a good idea?

Yeah, he's scum. But a recurring thought in Iraq seems to be "things under Saddam weren't as bad as we thought." And many now see him as being an icon for resistance against the occupation.
Steve Clemons at Huffington

The track has been laid. I don't see any way that Hussein can escape execution -- but everyone involved needs to realize that Hussein is no longer just a criminal, thuggish, murderous tyrant in the eyes of most Iraqi citizens.

To many, he has become a defiant leader fighting American oppression and someone who portrays himself as a proud and ferocious Sunni force. Many Sunnis want him back -- and we need to prepare for something big, very big, when he dies.

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