Despite drop in violence, Pentagon finds little long-term progress in Iraq

[maddezmom]

Source: McClatchy

WASHINGTON — Despite significant security gains in much of Iraq, nothing has changed within Iraq's political leadership to guarantee sustainable peace, a Pentagon report released Tuesday found.

The congressionally mandated quarterly report suggests that the drop in violence won't hold unless Iraq's central government passes key legislation, improves the way it manages its security forces and finds a way to reconcile the country's competing sects. It said none of those steps has been taken.

"Although security gains, local accommodation and progress against the flow of foreign fighters and lethal aid into Iraq have had a substantial effect, more needs to be done to foster national, 'top-down' reconciliation to sustain the gains," the report said.

The Pentagon report is the latest assessment circulating in Washington as officials ponder whether the strategy of increasing U.S. troop strength this year by 30,000 can be called a victory or whether the drop in violence is a lull that will break once the United States returns to last year's troop levels.

Another report this week, by retired Lt. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, said that mid-ranking U.S. military officers have become "the de-facto low-level government of the Iraq state."



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/23386.html

[glowing]

1. Well, duh... they've given up on patrols in certain areas.. they are

sending certain troops home... because they have extended them almost 2yrs now in the field.. the only reason 5000 troops are coming home is because they have stretched them too far, and there isn't enough readied troops ready to go back... If they want to keep this up, they need to enact a draft.. and I will fight every ounce in my body against that happening no matter what the rhetoric is about that.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. No biggie. It's only costing us $3 billion a week.

And I can't believe that Democrats are talking about staying in Iraq for more than a year after the next president is sworn in.

[Finite]

3. what..

you think that the defence industry only has it's fangs in the republican party? Hilary (and no doubt Obama) has taken a lot of money from them, part of that contract is to maintain a state of permanent war.