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April 10th, 2006

Clouds of mystery pourin’, confusion on the ground.
New York Times ~ by ERIC SCHMITT
and EDWARD WONG
U.S. Study Paints Somber Portrait of Iraqi Discord
WASHINGTON, April 8 — An internal staff report by the United States Embassy and the military command in Baghdad provides a sobering province-by-province snapshot of Iraq’s political, economic and security situation, rating the overall stability of 6 of the 18 provinces “serious” and one “critical.” The report is a counterpoint to some recent upbeat public statements by top American politicians and military officials.
The report, 10 pages of briefing points titled “Provincial Stability Assessment,” underscores the shift in the nature of the Iraq war three years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Warnings of sectarian and ethnic frictions are raised in many regions, even in those provinces generally described as nonviolent by American officials.

Troubled by his role and the smell of the swamp he was getting into, Kennedy resorted to another fact-finding mission, the now traditional Washington substitute for policy. A rapid but intensive four-day tour was made by General Victor Krulak, special adviser to Maxwell Taylor, who was now Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Joseph Mendenhall of State, an old Vietnam hand with a large acquantance among Vietnamese civilians. Their reports to the White House on return, one hearty and promising from military sources, the other caustic and gloomy, were so at variance as to evoke the President’s puzzled query “you two did visit the same country, didn’t you?”
The March of Folly: from Troy to Vietnam,
by Barbara W. Tuchman.
Softcover, ©1984. pg. 309.

Posted in The War Years | By Willie Buck Merle

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