"I think we are winning. Okay? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05
"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.
There was a time when USA Today was considered to be the Wonder Bread of American newspapers. Now it's not surprising to see their reporting at times surpass that of the New York Times and the Washington Post on occasion.
Dor instance, this article from the day after Bush's major speech on the Iraq War this past week provided a good critical analysis: Optimism and other assessments at odds by Matt Kelley, Steven Komarow and Jim Drinkard USA Today 12/01/05.
Kelley, et al, offer this important caution about Iraqi force development:
Another problem not mentioned in Bush's assessment: while billions of dollars have been spent training and equipping Iraqi troops, and their numbers keep growing, their loyalty remains suspect.
Some Iraqi units have been dominated by Shiite Muslims or minority Kurds who fought Sunni Arabs who had oppressed them under Saddam Hussein.
Their participation is more of an indication of sectarian loyalties than the development of a unifying national security force, says Pat Lang, former chief of Middle East intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency. In sum, the training program "is very much a mixed bag," says Lang. "It isn't as good as he makes it sound, but it isn't as bad" as some contend.
Bush cited Sunni clerics' recent decree to their followers to join the Iraqi security forces, saying the Sunnis are "helping to make the Iraqi security forces a truly national institution, one that is able to serve, protect and defend all the Iraqi people."
But those Sunnis may just sign up "to infiltrate Iraqi security services," says Larry Diamond, an Iraq expert at Stanford University who took part in the U.S.-led authority that ruled Iraq after the fall of Saddam. That could better position them to attack Americans and take revenge on Shiites who have been implicated in assassinations of prominent Sunnis and the torture of Sunni detainees, he says. In its fact sheet, the White House acknowledged that infiltration is a problem.
USA Today at the end of the article also provides a useful brief summary of the propaganda pamphlet released in conjunction with Bush's speech, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, with appropriate cautions indicated.
"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05
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