Insurgents are deploying huge, deeply buried munitions set up to protect their territory and mounting complex ambushes that demonstrate their ability to respond rapidly to U.S. tactics. A new counterinsurgency strategy has resulted in decreased civilian deaths in Baghdad but has placed thousands of additional American troops at greater risk in small outposts in the capital and other parts of the country.
Take American troops who are over used, exhausted, weighed down with complex armor and weaponry, given the task of urban mano-a-mano fighting. Put them up against a flexible, well armed, renewable and dedicated guerrilla force and you have the numbers of fatalities increasing exponentially.
"It is very clear that the number of attacks against U.S. forces is up" and that they have grown more effective in Baghdad, especially in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, deputy commander for operations in Iraq. At the same time, he said, attacks on Iraqi security forces have declined slightly, citing figures that compare the period of mid-February to mid-May to the preceding three months. "The attacks are being directed at us and not against other people," he said.
...Simmons said helicopter downings such as the one in Diyala reflect a "thinking and adaptive enemy" that is refining its skills. "There is a greater degree of training," he said.
What's worse, the CIA saw all of this coming several months before the invasion of Iraq even began and it said so, loud and clear. A briefing paper, "Perfect Storm," laid out the scenario for just the kind of failure we're facing in Iraq right now.
George Tenet tells us that the "Perfect Storm" briefing paper was relegated to the bottom of the pile in the White House. After all, it predicted a long, difficult engagement which would lead to a long term American commitment on Iraqi soil.
Another opportunity for all of us to shout "they knew! they knew!" Of course they knew, damn it!
But by now we should have learned out lesson. We should take for granted that the White House says one thing and does another. "Shock and awe" and "mission accomplished" were not what Bush/Cheney and advisors were after. They had much bigger, longer-term ambitions.
What no one seems to catch on to is that the best thing about the CIA's "Perfect Storm" briefing paper -- from the Bush administration's pont of view -- was precisely that it predicted a long-term commitment. That's what the administration wanted! They've been planning and working for over a decade for a big, semi-permanent US presence in Iraq -- military and industrial.
When will our gradually awakening media catch on?
