[Texgreen] Iraq update

[Roger Baker]

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/10/ 
AR2006091001204_pf.html>



The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed  
an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing  
that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is  
almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and  
social situation there, said several military officers and  
intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

The officials described Col. Pete Devlin's classified assessment of  
the dire state of Anbar as the first time that a senior U.S. military  
officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq.

One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We  
haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated  
politically -- and that's where wars are won and lost."

The "very pessimistic" statement, as one Marine officer called it,  
was dated Aug. 16 and sent to Washington shortly after that, and has  
been discussed across the Pentagon and elsewhere in national security  
circles....

Devlin offers a series of reasons for the situation, including a lack  
of U.S. and Iraqi troops, a problem that has dogged commanders since  
the fall of Baghdad more than three years ago, said people who have  
read it. These people said he reported that not only are military  
operations facing a stalemate, unable to extend and sustain security  
beyond the perimeters of their bases, but also local governments in  
the province have collapsed and the weak central government has  
almost no presence....

Anbar is a key province; it encompasses Ramadi and Fallujah, which  
with Baghdad pose the greatest challenge U.S. forces have faced in  
Iraq. It accounts for 30 percent of Iraq's land mass, encompassing  
the vast area from the capital to the borders of Syria and Jordan,  
including much of the area that has come to be known as the Sunni  
Triangle.