Competing with Arnie's sex issues and Rush's race and drug problems, Gen. Sanchez' warning this week probably didn't get the intention it deserves. The commander of American forces in Iraq said:
This is still wartime. ... There is still some intense fighting to be done, especially out in the west. We should not be surprised if one of these mornings we wake up and ... there has been a major firefight with some casualties or a significant terrorist attack that kills significant numbers of people.
Apart from the merits of the war or the occupation policy, this is the kind of thing both civilian and military officials at the Pentagon should be saying more often.
Fans of the war are suggesting that the press is causing the Administration's credibility problems. That's way off base. The press generally is still much too little critical on the war.
But over-optimistic expectations that the Administration raised about the costs (human and financial) of the war and the occupation have not so far been met. That's the credibility problem.
But Sanchez' bosses in Washington are still at it:
Sanchez stressed that U.S. forces were improving their ability to confront the resistance, a statement echoed Thursday in Washington by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen.Suzanne GoldenbergRichard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who defended American progress in Iraq.
"While there is no question we have faced some challenges and we've got some ahead of us, we have really achieved numerous successes and expect the situation to continue to improve," Myers told reporters at a Pentagon news conference. "We're in this for the long haul and ... we'll get the job done."
And it's starting to look like the US is running a serious risk of losing even the existing level of diplomatic support from the United Nations for the occupation.
Happy talk isn't going to fix this.
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