Stench of Failure

Here's a UPI story by Richard Sale with a bleak overview of the situation in Iraq.

There's too much damning information to excerpt it all, but here are some bits:

WASHINGTON -- As insurgents launched counterattacks in cities following the U.S. victory in Fallujah, several administration official acknowledged that U.S. military tactics in Iraq since last April have proved ineffective in destroying guerrilla forces and have acted to weaken popular support for the new U.S.-appointed government.

....

A senior Pentagon official complained that U.S. counterintelligence investigations designed to prevent enemy penetration of U.S. facilities had proved "pitiably inadequate."

The ability of the insurgents to penetrate U.S. intelligence was made clear in the recent massacre of 49 Iraqi soldiers who were taken from three minibuses at a fake checkpoint and then shot in the back of the head.

"That massacre would not have been possible without enemy penetration of U.S. plans," a knowledgeable U.S. official said.

....

"Things are absolutely terrible," said former CIA counterterrorism chief, Vince Cannistraro. "The insurgency is growing and spreading, and its ability to coordinate operations, the growing sophistication of those operations places us in a disaster of unprecedented proportion."

Referring to the "pin strike bombings" claimed by the administration against Zarqawi, Peter Singer, national security fellow at the Brookings Institution, called the bombings a "stop-gap measure" and "unwise."

"When I hear of an F-16 dropping a 500-pound bomb on a populated area, I cringe, because you have to know innocent people are being killed," he said.

There's more information in that story -- read it. What an incredible disaster .

Thank you, George W. Bush.