Salon: The "war is lost"

[priller]

This article is mainly quotes from an array of military experts.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/09/16/iraq_war/index.html

Military experts say they see no exit from the Iraq debacle -- and that the war is helping al-Qaida.

...Retired Gen. William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse -- he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He added: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving bin Laden's ends."

..."I see no ray of light on the horizon at all," said Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College. "The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after World War II in Germany and Japan."

..."I don't think that you can kill the insurgency," said W. Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, the top expert on Iraq there. According to Terrill, the anti-U.S. insurgency, centered in the Sunni triangle, and holding several key cities and towns, including Fallujah, is expanding and becoming more capable as a direct consequence of U.S. policy. "We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are X number of insurgents and when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the U.S. presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. dupe

of http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x73738

[sam sarrha]

2. in the Arab League conference a delegate said,'the Americans have opened

the Gates of Hell in Iraq'.

[Moderator]

3. Locking as duplicate.

Please continue discussion here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x73738