NYT: Military spokesman: “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the [View All]

[smoogatz]

sectarian violence.”

Jesus, who are these morons trying to kid? Everybody and their fucking uncle besides Dubya, Cheney, Rummy, Condi and Wolfie anticipated sectarian violence in Iraq once Saddam was gone. Christ on a cracker.

Here are a few key paragraphs from the middle of today's front page piece on the devolution of Baghdad:


American commanders say the greater violence in Baghdad does not necessarily suggest that the Iraqi forces are failing. Iraqi police officers and army soldiers are competent, the Americans say, but the explosion of sectarian violence has been of a scope and virulence that could overwhelm any army.

“I don’t think we moved too quickly,” General Caldwell said of putting the Iraqis in charge of Baghdad. “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the sectarian violence.”

Some independent observers say the Americans have a point — that the job of trying to secure a city of seven million people plagued by terrorism, sectarian violence and crime is a task of a magnitude that has never been attempted by a modern army. Some wonder whether the additional 7,000 American troops bound for the city will be enough.

“I don’t believe this operation was designed to turn a corner,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I believe it was designed to stop a civil war.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/world/middleeast/06baghdad.html?_r=1&oref=slogin