Current News in Context
June 16, 2005
Showing the insights and nuance that won him a Pulitzer Prize two years ago, Anthony Shadid with Steve Fainaru of the Washington Post spend three days with Iraqi soldiers working under the US forces.
They find irreconcilable differences, deep resentments and a dangerous lack of trust. Tidbit: Of the 170 battalions that have been trained only three are deemed 'capable' of operating on their own.
Jonathan Schell has a forthcoming review of the article, and Tom Lasseter, a military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers weighs in on the growing realization among US military officials that there is no military solution in Iraq. Ron Hutcheson reports on a new resolution in the House that seeks to start a national debate on ending the war and occupation and removing US troops.
Building Iraq's Army: Mission Improbable (10 June 2005)
By Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru
*****
The Exception Is the Rule
by Jonathan Schell
Sometimes the truth of a large, confusing historical enterprise can be glimpsed in a single news report. Such is the case in regard to the Iraq War, it seems to me, with the recent story in the Washington Post by Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru called "Building Iraq's Army: Mission Improbable." Shadid and Fainaru did something that is rarely done: spend several days with a unit of Iraq's new, American-trained forces. (The typical treatment of the topic consists of a few interviews with American officers in the Green Zone in Baghdad, leading to some estimation of how long it will take to complete the job.) The Post story starts with the lyrics of a song the soldiers of the unit, called Charlie Company, were singing out of earshot of their American overseers. It was a ballad to Saddam Hussein, and it ran:
We have lived in humiliation since you left
We had hoped to spend our life with you
*****
US Officers: Military action won't end insurgency (12 June 2005)
Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years.
Instead, officers say, the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics - an arena that so far has been crippled by divisions between Shiite Muslims, whose coalition dominated the January elections, and Sunni Muslims, who are a minority in Iraq but form the base of support for the insurgency."
*****
Resolution to withdraw troops from Iraq introduced (16 June 2005)
By Ron Hutcheson
"[F]our lawmakers - two Democrats and two Republicans - introduced a resolution calling for withdrawal starting in October 2006. It doesn't specify an end point for complete withdrawal, but it bucks the Bush administration line all the same.
Its sponsors include Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., a conservative whose district includes the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune. He's hardly a stereotypical dove; in the early days of the war, Jones' anger over French opposition prompted him to propose replacing French fries with "freedom fries" on the menu in Capitol dining rooms.
Resolution supporters said it has little chance of passage in the Republican-controlled Congress. They said their goal was to start a national debate on bringing home the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. More than 1,700 Americans have died since President Bush ordered the invasion on March 19, 2003."
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