The Redhunter

Three million Iraqis are internally displaced or have fled the country to Syria and Jordan. The technical and educated elites are going into self-imposed exile—-a huge brain drain that imperils the ability to govern. The Maliki government has little credibility among the Shia populations from which it emerged. It is despised by the Sunni as a Persian surrogate. It is believed untrustworthy and incompetent by the Kurds.

There is no function of government that operates effectively across the nation—- not health care, not justice, not education, not transportation, not labor and commerce, not electricity, not oil production. There is no province in the country in which the government has dominance. The government cannot spend its own money effectively. ($7.1 billion sits in New York banks.) No Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO, nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi—-without heavily armed protection.

The police force is feared as a Shia militia in uniform which is responsible for thousands of extra-judicial killings. There is no effective nation-wide court system. There are in general almost no acceptable Iraqi penal institutions. The population is terrorized by rampant criminal gangs involved in kidnapping, extortion, robbery, rape, massive stealing of public property —-such as electrical lines, oil production material, government transportation, etc. (Saddam released 80,000 criminal prisoners.)

The Iraqi Army is too small, very badly equipped (inadequate light armor, junk Soviet small arms, no artillery, no helicopters to speak of, currently no actual or planned ground attack aircraft of significance, no significant air transport assets (only three C-130’s), no national military logistics system, no national military medical system, etc. The Iraqi Army is also unduly dominated by the Shia, and in many battalions lacks discipline. There is no legal authority to punish Iraqi soldiers or police who desert their comrades. (The desertion/AWOL numbers frequently leave Iraqi Army battalions at 50% strength or less.)

That's all certainly bad news. Add to that his accurate statement that "US domestic support for the war in Iraq has evaporated and will not return" and you've got problems.

But that's not all. Under "The Current Situation" he's relatively optimistic, which may seem a bit odd given what we just read. But we should not expect wars to be all good or bad news. Most of the time they are a mixture of both. Victory, after all, goes to the side that makes the fewest mistakes, not to the side who makes none at all.

Here are some excerpts

Since the arrival of General David Petraeus in command of Multi-National Force Iraq—- the situation on the ground has clearly and measurably improved.

1st: The Maliki government has given the green light to prune out elements of the renegade Sadr organization in Baghdad...

2nd: The US and Iraqi Forces have now dramatically changed their operational scheme. More then 50+ Iraqi Police/Army and US Army Joint Security Stations (JSS) are now being emplaced across the city and extended into the suburbs....The Iraqi people are encouraged....The murder rate has plummeted....

3rd: The Iraqis have finally committed credible numbers of integrated Police and Army units to the battle of Baghdad...

4th: There is a real and growing ground swell of Sunni tribal opposition to the Al Qaeda-in-Iraq terror formations....The Takfiri AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) extremism of: no music, no photos, no videos, no cutting of beards, etc does not sit well with the moderate form is Islam practiced among the western tribes. This is a crucial struggle and it is going our way - for now.

5th: The equipment and resources for the Iraqi Security Forces has increased dramatically...

6th: Reconciliation of the internal warring elements in Iraq will be how we eventually win the war in Iraq—-if it happens. There is a very sophisticated and carefully integrated approach by the Iraqi government and Coalition actors to defuse the armed violence from internal enemies and bring people into the political process...

7th: US Combat forces are simply superb...Re-enlistment rates are simply astonishing.

8th: The US Tier One special operations capability is simply magic. They are deadly in getting their target - with normally zero collateral damage....

Much better than the first part. If you're not clear on our new strategy, or think that we're just sending more troops to do the same thing, I suggest you go read the unclassified version of the plan. It was put together by ret. Gen Jack Keane and AEI resident scholar Frederick Kagan, and is called "A Plan for Success in Iraq." Most media reports simply refer to it as a "surge" and leave it at that. The truth is that there's a lot more to it.

McCaffrey's conclusion is that

In my judgment, we can still achieve our objective of: a stable Iraq, at peace with its neighbors, not producing weapons of mass destruction, and fully committed to a law-based government. The courage and strength of the US Armed Forces still gives us latitude and time to build the economic and political conditions that might defuse the ongoing civil war. Our central purpose is to allow the nation to re-establish governance based on some loose federal consensus among the three major ethnic-factional actors. (Shia, Sunni, Kurd.)

However,

We have very little time left. This President will have the remainder of his months in office beleaguered by his political opponents to the war....This insurgency will continue in some form for a decade. This suggests the fundamental dilemma facing US policymakers.

Insurgencies are not like World War II. Even in ones in which the government eventually wins, they drag on for years. As Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia", said; defeating an insurgency is like eating soup with a knife. You can do it, but it's messy and takes a long time.

In the end, McCaffrey says

We have a brilliant military and civilian leadership on the ground in Iraq. General Dave Petraeus, LTG Ray Odierno, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have the country's treasure and combat power at their disposal. Our cause is just. The consequence of failure will be severe.

So it's like I've been saying for some time; beat up on the Bush Administration if it makes you feel better. Berate Rumsefeld, Franks, Abazaid, whomever you like.

Contrary to polls I do think that we did the right thing in invading Iraq and deposing Saddam. My Belgium friend and blogger Michael wrote an eloquent piece recently about Why Operation Iraqi Freedom Was the Right Thing to Do, and I second every bit of it.

But at this point whether you agree with that assessment or not doesn't matter. We are where we are. The bottom line is that McCaffrey is right: " Our cause is just. The consequence of failure will be severe. "