DoD Report to Congress on Iraq

[Raiders Army]

The report in its entirety can be obtained here: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/d20050721secstab.pdf

Summary:

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE REPORT ON IRAQ

On July 21, DoD provided Congress with an update on Iraq's progress in moving toward a secure and self-supporting society. The report assesses Iraq's status on the political, economic and security fronts. Below are highlights from a press conference held by Secretary Rumsfeld discussing key points of the report.

Political Progress
• Terrorists have failed to derail the political process in Iraq.
• The date for the national referendum on the permanent constitution remains on schedule for October 15.
• Elections for a new Assembly are scheduled for December 15.

• The U.N. is supporting Iraq's constitutional development process.
• The United States and the European Union jointly hosted a conference in Brussels that led to additional pledges of financial support for the new Iraqi government.

• Iraqis' confidence in their future is increasing.
• A recent poll shows a ten percent rise since January in the number of Iraqis who believe their country is headed in the right direction.

Economic Progress
• Between January and June, new business registrations have increased by 50 percent.
• Cell phone and internet usage, both heavily restricted during Hussein's regime, is up.

Security Progress
• Attacks on infrastructure have decreased since the January elections.
• The number of Iraqi Security Forces exceeds the number of Coalition troops by a good margin.

Challenges
• Although terrorists have suffered numerous setbacks, those in Iraq remain effective, adaptable and intent on carrying out attacks against Iraqi civilians and officials.
• The extremists continue to try to foment tension, ethnic strife and even civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ias through murder and attacks on religious sites.
• Countries such as Syria and Iran remain notably unhelpful in assisting Iraq secure its borders from foreign invaders.
• Unemployment remains a concern, though increasing business development should alleviate that problem.

I haven't read the whole thing yet and I'll hold off on comments until after I do so.

[Bee]

The report asses Iraq's status

Boy did they get that right...

:D

[MrBigglesworth]

Does it mention how Iraq's power generation has gone down in the past year and most people are without electricity for most of the day? Or does it mention the number of attacks per day?Those are major points that I would think would be somewhere on the summary, but it looks like a whitewash.

[gstelmack]

Or does it mention the number of attacks per day?
• Although terrorists have suffered numerous setbacks, those in Iraq remain effective, adaptable and intent on carrying out attacks against Iraqi civilians and officials.
• The extremists continue to try to foment tension, ethnic strife and even civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ias through murder and attacks on religious sites.
I mean, do you even read stuff, or just spout off your Administration attacks whenever given anything close to an opportunity?

[MrBigglesworth]

I mean, do you even read stuff, or just spout off your Administration attacks whenever given anything close to an opportunity?
I must be missing something, because I still do not see where it mentions where the attacks are going down or up (I'm pretty sure they are going up) or how many there are. Like I said, it's just a "terrorists are bad but we must remain vigilant!" type thing, not really any kind of progress report. But by your tone you must see something that I don't, because you wouldn't say something like that unless you were sure, so where exactly does it say that the attacks are going up or down?

[gstelmack]

I must be missing something, because I still do not see where it mentions where the attacks are going down or up (I'm pretty sure they are going up) or how many there are. Like I said, it's just a "terrorists are bad but we must remain vigilant!" type thing, not really any kind of progress report. But by your tone you must see something that I don't, because you wouldn't say something like that unless you were sure, so where exactly does it say that the attacks are going up or down?
Pages 6 & 7 of the report, then. Several graphs for you. Shows that attacks peaked right before the elections, are slowly going down, and remain limited to select parts of the country (several areas of the country are seeing almost no attack activity).

And yes, it even includes a graph of electricity supplied.

The summary seems to match that fairly well. I see the summary lines quoted as saying "we've beat them back some, but they are still active" which matches the graphs showing the attacks reducing but still at significant levels.

The goal of the summary is not to present detailed numbers, that's what the report is for (and does). It's to give a quick overview.

[Dutch]

I must be missing something, because I still do not see where it mentions where the attacks are going down or up (I'm pretty sure they are going up) or how many there are.

Does it mention how Iraq's power generation has gone down in the past year and most people are without electricity for most of the day?

It does. Daily Electricity Supplied.

June 17th, 2004 - 80k MWH were produced
December 30th, 2005 - Dipped down to 70k MWH
June 17th, 2005 - 110k MWH were produced

It also mentions that the daily load requirements are no longer 110k MWH per day which they achieved for Iraq but are now closer to 150k MWH.

Or does it mention the number of attacks per day?Those are major points that I would think would be somewhere on the summary,

It does give you attacks per week averages. Peaked in Jun 04 - Nov 04 (Achieved Sovereignty timeframe) and almost achieved same levels in Nov 04 - Feb 05 (Election Timeframe) at over 500 attacks per week. It shows that the numbers in this stage (Pre-constitution phase) the attacks are just over 400 attacks a week.

It also shows that 80% of the attacks happen in 4 provinces (Baghdad, Al Anbar, Ninawa, and Salahad Din).

but it looks like a whitewash.

[Warhammer]

Interesting that the requirements for electricity have increased by nearly 50%! That is definitely a good sign.

[MrBigglesworth]

It does. Daily Electricity Supplied.

June 17th, 2004 - 80k MWH were produced
December 30th, 2005 - Dipped down to 70k MWH
June 17th, 2005 - 110k MWH were produced

It also mentions that the daily load requirements are no longer 110k MWH per day which they achieved for Iraq but are now closer to 150k MWH.



It does give you attacks per week averages. Peaked in Jun 04 - Nov 04 (Achieved Sovereignty timeframe) and almost achieved same levels in Nov 04 - Feb 05 (Election Timeframe) at over 500 attacks per week. It shows that the numbers in this stage (Pre-constitution phase) the attacks are just over 400 attacks a week.

It also shows that 80% of the attacks happen in 4 provinces (Baghdad, Al Anbar, Ninawa, and Salahad Din).
Looking over the actual document, I think my issues mostly lie with the original summary by RaidersArmy that I thought was the real summary of the report. The report does mention the electricity and attack situations, though it does only report the positives and has misleading graphs. I am curious about the number of security forces that it says are trained, the reports that are coming from the front lines say that the official numbers are inflated.

[Raiders Army]

#1: I cut and pasted the summary.
#2: There is a space between Raiders and Army. Thank you.

[gstelmack]

The report does mention the electricity and attack situations, though it does only report the positives and has misleading graphs.
What is misleading about the graphs? The report shows lots of attacks before the elections, clearly shows the dips in electricity production at certain times, the summary points out that there are still issues, ...

It seems like a pretty balanced report to me, especially as I believe (and according to other reports today, more Iraqis believe) that things ARE getting better over there. Doesn't mean they are good yet, but they are definitely heading down that road.

But since the media only focuses on the negatives, no one gets to see the positives, and when the DoD releases a report showing some of the positives, no one believes them because all they see are the negative media reports day after day after day. This despite the fact that the DoD report backs up its conclusion with numbers, while the media just throws around some pictures and opinion pieces.

[MrBigglesworth]

#1: I cut and pasted the summary.
Well it wasn't cut and pasted from the report, where did you cut and paste it from?

[CamEdwards]

I believe this is called attacking the messenger. :D

[Raiders Army]

Some good things to note:

On July 18, 2005, Jordan hosted an international donors’ conference to build upon the 2003 Madrid Conference, at which $13.6 billion was pledged (by non-U.S. sources, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and 37 bilateral donors) to Iraqi reconstruction and development.
Nice to see we're not the only ones contributing money towards Iraq.

One noteworthy strategic indicator of progress toward a stable security environment has been the inability of insurgents to derail the political process and timeline. To do so is the strategic objective of the insurgents, and they are failing to achieve it.
Another good point made.

Although unemployment of approximately 28% (as reported by the Iraqi government) remains a concern, new business formation is laying the groundwork for future gains in private sector employment.
Unemployment is rising there...

The number of internet subscribers more than doubled since June 2004, and the number of landline subscribers has increased as well.
This is a good sign...once they get on the internet, they can come to FOFC. :)

The goal is a diversified force that mirrors national ethnic and religious demographics and whose allegiance is to the Republic of Iraq rather than a particular province, ethnic, or tribal group.
Concerning their military, this may be a problem. We still encounter racial and sexist strife in our military.

Currently, the ISF do not have a system in place to track the Border Police’s readiness and capabilities.
This is something that needs some work to help stem the flow of terrorists into the country.

Overall, I'd say it's a fair assessment. While focusing on positives, it also brings out negatives as well.

[MrBigglesworth]

What is misleading about the graphs?
For instance on the electricity graphs, it looks like we have me the line for the 30 June 2005 goal, but when was that goal made? June 1? I doubt it was our goal a year ago, when electriciy production was higher than that. And the pre-war estimate is a single line of the average produced, but we know from the graph (and from common sense) that electricity needs (and hence production) go up during the summer and down during the winter. So though we are above the pre-war level now, our average over the past 12 months is not, which assumes progress which isn't there. For instance, if you made this same graph for America's energy production on June 30 of every year, you would see the same upturn in production, but you wouldn't conclude that it is because of the fantastic job of building new power plants and fixing old ones. Over a longer period of time the graph would be a sin curve, hopefully with a positive overall slope. In the small sample that we do have, that doesn't look to be the case, there looks to be no overall slope at all to the sin curve.

[Raiders Army]

Well it wasn't cut and pasted from the report, where did you cut and paste it from?
http://www4.army.mil/news/standto.html

[Leonidas]

I must be missing something, because I still do not see where it mentions where the attacks are going down or up (I'm pretty sure they are going up) or how many there are. Like I said, it's just a "terrorists are bad but we must remain vigilant!" type thing, not really any kind of progress report. But by your tone you must see something that I don't, because you wouldn't say something like that unless you were sure, so where exactly does it say that the attacks are going up or down?

I love the presumption that attacks are up, I assume based upon "The media told me so".

And I suppose if the military report said things were going bad you would be all over it saying, "See we told you so."

It's pretty much a no win situation in certain circles. They must be whitewashing it if things are going well, and things must really be bad if you admit there are problems.

As for folks jumping on the power production as an anomoly of summer, granted demand is up in summer, but look at the numbers June 05 compare with June 04. They are way up.

[MrBigglesworth]

I love the presumption that attacks are up, I assume based upon "The media told me so".
I'm sure you read the news reports of American deaths in Iraq. Here they are over the past couple of months:
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/trend.gif
As you can see, compared to where they were after the election, US deaths in Iraq have doubled. Note the trendline as well. This is what I mean about how the DoD massaged the data. It looks like attacks are down, but that is only because of they way they bunched the data up. Spreading it out, you see that just as 25% more Americans died in May/June of this year as May/June of '04. Deaths over the past two months are also more than over the previous three months.

Now, deaths don't equate to attacks, but since we are hearing that Iraqi's are taking over the security load, it could mean that attacks are up even more than American deaths are up.

All in all, the graph doesn't exactly inspire confidence as far as the insurgency being in its 'last throes', nor does it even suggest attacks are on the decline in the short or long terms.

EDIT: Another point: more Americans died over May/June than died during the actual war, that is, prior to 'Mission Accomplished'.

[Dutch]

Um, the DOD report doesn't mention casualties. The title clearly states that it's measuring Stability and Security in Iraq.

[MrBigglesworth]

Um, the DOD report doesn't mention casualties. The title clearly states that it's measuring Stability and Security in Iraq.
Very good point, which may explain why I added this paragraph to my analysis:
Now, deaths don't equate to attacks, but since we are hearing that Iraqi's are taking over the security load, it could mean that attacks are up even more than American deaths are up.

[Dutch]

It's a fair and noteworthy discussion on it's own terms, but I think it's logical and fair to come to the conclusion that US Death rates do not need to be included in this particular report that focuses instead on Iraq's security and stability.

[Raiders Army]

I'm sure you read the news reports of American deaths in Iraq. Here they are over the past couple of months:
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/trend.gif
As you can see, compared to where they were after the election, US deaths in Iraq have doubled. Note the trendline as well. This is what I mean about how the DoD massaged the data. It looks like attacks are down, but that is only because of they way they bunched the data up. Spreading it out, you see that just as 25% more Americans died in May/June of this year as May/June of '04. Deaths over the past two months are also more than over the previous three months.

And this data isn't massaged? If you look at the first year of the war, the trend is downwards. Also, when you say 25% more Americans died in May/June of this year compared to May/June of 2004, you neglect to point out that in March/April of this year there were 53% less deaths than in March/April of 2004. Anyone can massage numbers, and you're doing it as well.

[duckman]

And this data isn't massaged? If you look at the first year of the war, the trend is downwards. Also, when you say 25% more Americans died in May/June of this year compared to May/June of 2004, you neglect to point out that in March/April of this year there were 53% less deaths than in March/April of 2004. Anyone can massage numbers, and you're doing it as well.
You shouldn't have done it. Now, he will attack your ability to read graphs. :rolleyes:

[Dutch]

And this data isn't massaged? If you look at the first year of the war, the trend is downwards. Also, when you say 25% more Americans died in May/June of this year compared to May/June of 2004, you neglect to point out that in March/April of this year there were 53% less deaths than in March/April of 2004. Anyone can massage numbers, and you're doing it as well.

And this data doesn't mention anything about the situation regarding Iraq's security or stability. I'd say it's more than massaged, it's whitewashed to only show the anti-Bush agenda.

[Raiders Army]

And this data doesn't mention anything about the situation regarding Iraq's security or stability. I'd say it's more than massaged, it's whitewashed to only show the anti-Bush agenda.
/agree

[Airhog]

If you add up the yearly totals however, you see that there were definately more deaths last year, then in the year before that. 644 vs 845

I think you need to look at other factors as well. How many of these deaths were caused by Iraq citizens? We know that terrorists have poured into Iraq over the last two years. It would seem to reason that the more terrorists in Iraq, the more americans they are going to kill...

[Glengoyne]

And this data doesn't mention anything about the situation regarding Iraq's security or stability. I'd say it's more than massaged, it's whitewashed to only show the anti-Bush agenda.
The "trend line" is the thing I'm not sure about. Looking at the data and that line....the relatively stark upward trajectory of that line doesn't seem to fit. That said...I know nothing about statistics and plotting data vectors...so I could be completely off base in my assessment.

[MrBigglesworth]

The "trend line" is the thing I'm not sure about. Looking at the data and that line....the relatively stark upward trajectory of that line doesn't seem to fit. That said...I know nothing about statistics and plotting data vectors...so I could be completely off base in my assessment.
The trendline doesn't count the first two months, which are the numbers during the war. The trendline just takes into account the deaths after 'mission accomplished'. You can plot it on excel and come up with the same trendline. The 135 and 137 influence it, but I bet if you took out the period between 135 and 107, the trendline would still be sloping upwards.

[MrBigglesworth]

And this data isn't massaged?
The data? Not at all, it's there in its untainted form.

If you look at the first year of the war, the trend is downwards.
That's incorrect, I just plotted the first 12 months after 'mission accomplished', and the trendline had an R squared value of .2428.

Also, when you say 25% more Americans died in May/June of this year compared to May/June of 2004, you neglect to point out that in March/April of this year there were 53% less deaths than in March/April of 2004. Anyone can massage numbers, and you're doing it as well.
Well, my point was to show that the numbers could show the exact opposite of what the DoD was trying to show with it, so I am glad that you picked up on it.

[MrBigglesworth]

And this data doesn't mention anything about the situation regarding Iraq's security or stability. I'd say it's more than massaged, it's whitewashed to only show the anti-Bush agenda.
CORDDRY: How does one report facts in an unbiased way when the facts themselves are biased?
STEWART: ...I'm sorry...I'm sorry, Rob -- did you say the facts are biased?
CORDDRY: That's right, John...From the names of our fallen soldiers, to the gradual withdrawl of our allies, to the growing insurgency -- it's become all too clear that the facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda.

[gstelmack]

CORDDRY: How does one report facts in an unbiased way when the facts themselves are biased?
STEWART: ...I'm sorry...I'm sorry, Rob -- did you say the facts are biased?
CORDDRY: That's right, John...From the names of our fallen soldiers, to the gradual withdrawl of our allies, to the growing insurgency -- it's become all too clear that the facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda.
You mean the facts you choose to present. You're ignoring the economic improvements, for example. And the decreasing attack count. And the political improvements. You're presenting American troop casualty figures and doing your best to dig bad news out of the electricity graph (which clearly shows slow but steady improvements to the grid) and deciding that everything is bad.

Stop ignoring the good news like the media has trained you to do and open your eyes just one tiny little bit.

[Klinglerware]

Stop ignoring the good news like the media has trained you to do and open your eyes just one tiny little bit.

Considering that the new Iraqi constitution guarantees its citizens the right to an education, social security, and health care; and restricts its citizens from bearing arms--I'd say that they have some good ideas and wouldn't mind it all if we adopted a few of those provisions!

[Crapshoot]

You mean the facts you choose to present. You're ignoring the economic improvements, for example. And the decreasing attack count. And the political improvements. You're presenting American troop casualty figures and doing your best to dig bad news out of the electricity graph (which clearly shows slow but steady improvements to the grid) and deciding that everything is bad.

Stop ignoring the good news like the media has trained you to do and open your eyes just one tiny little bit.

Then again, there are over 10,000 Iraqi's who've been killed in this act of American "goodwill" - so its very hard to tell them all what a great favor you've done them. That being said, things do appear to be looking up - which throwing $150 billion at it tends to do.

[Crapshoot]

The "trend line" is the thing I'm not sure about. Looking at the data and that line....the relatively stark upward trajectory of that line doesn't seem to fit. That said...I know nothing about statistics and plotting data vectors...so I could be completely off base in my assessment.


As for the graph, from a naked eye, Bigglesworth's line looks reasonable- however, an r-square of 0.22 indicates its a pretty weak fit, if at all. As such, it doesn't really help his point much. However, deaths have been up in this year- that much is true - graph or no graph.

[MrBigglesworth]

You mean the facts you choose to present. You're ignoring the economic improvements, for example. And the decreasing attack count. And the political improvements. You're presenting American troop casualty figures and doing your best to dig bad news out of the electricity graph (which clearly shows slow but steady improvements to the grid) and deciding that everything is bad.

Stop ignoring the good news like the media has trained you to do and open your eyes just one tiny little bit.
Ok, my point is that the report shows the good news while ignoring or misrepresenting the bad news, and you think I should support that argument by going over the good stuff again? That would be kind of inane of me, wouldn't it? Completely superfluous to the point I am trying to make? If someone says that there are daisies in the flower bed, and my point is that there are weeds, does it do any good to mention all the daisies again?

[Dutch]

Ok, my point is that the report shows the good news while ignoring or misrepresenting the bad news, and you think I should support that argument by going over the good stuff again? That would be kind of inane of me, wouldn't it? Completely superfluous to the point I am trying to make? If someone says that there are daisies in the flower bed, and my point is that there are weeds, does it do any good to mention all the daisies again?

And I think the facts are that this report points out that daisies are blooming and the challenge is that in order for them to survive, there are still weeds left to be pulled.

It says it all right there. But because it has positive news in the report, you immediately discount it. Not because you are the epitome of sound reason and logic, but because you are an oppositionist to our government. Plain and simple.

[Klinglerware]

The r2 is actually pretty low, but the exercise is essentially meaningless since the data is not equivalized. A better data source would be deaths/x # of soldiers serving. If the troop levels are going down, then you can be more confident that you have an upwards trend, but you really can't tell unless you have equivalized numbers...

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Then again, there are over 10,000 Iraqi's who've been killed in this act of American "goodwill" - so its very hard to tell them all what a great favor you've done them. That being said, things do appear to be looking up - which throwing $150 billion at it tends to do.

Recent statistics say about 25,000 Iraqi civilians have died... and that the U.S. was responsible for 4x more civilian deaths than the insurgents/terrorists (although a large portion of those were during the early invasion phase).

For more info: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr12.php

[Dutch]

Recent statistics say about 25,000 Iraqi civilians have died... and that the U.S. was responsible for 4x more civilian deaths than the insurgents/terrorists (although a large portion of those were during the early invasion phase).

For more info: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr12.php

Yes, the definitive source for unbiased information. Check out the webmasters other sites such as www.peaceuk.net and www.humanshields.org !

(EDIT: Seriously.)

[Leonidas]

Recent statistics say about 25,000 Iraqi civilians have died... and that the U.S. was responsible for 4x more civilian deaths than the insurgents/terrorists (although a large portion of those were during the early invasion phase).

For more info: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr12.php

You overlooked this snippet, which BTW it's pretty hard at times to distinguish between insurgent activities and criminal activities.
Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths

And 30% of all the civilian fatalities took place before the occupation. So if US forces are responsible for 37% of all deaths, and 30 of that 37% occured before occupation, that means since the occupation insurgents lead 9-7. See, I can manipulate numbers too.

[Klinglerware]

You overlooked this snippet, which BTW it's pretty hard at times to distinguish between insurgent activities and criminal activities.




The report itself is quite interesting in that the key takeaway for me is that criminality overshadows all other violence in Iraq. You are right that most of the civilians killed by the US happened during the initial invasion. Looking at the numbers in the report, aside from brief spikes that probably coincide with US anti-insurgency offensives, the insurgency are killing civilians at a slightly higher rate than the occupation forces post-invasion. But that is all small potatoes compared to death from criminal activity.

I do agree with you that it can be difficult to distinguish between politically motivated actions and mere criminality, but I don't think confounding is that big of an issue with this report: the report itself does a decent job of separating the political from the criminal--even if the percentage of misattributed criminal acts were high, the overall numbers are still so breathtakingly high enough to suggest that there is a serious crime problem in Iraq independent of the occupation and insurgency (though I wouldn't also doubt that both of these contributed to the climate of crime in the country).

Hindsight is 20-20, of course. But considering the authority vacuum post-Invasion, it appears that it wasn't the best policy to allow the civilians to keep their personal firearms. Since rule of law and adequate policing were not restored in a timely manner, this created an environment where elements of the civilian population were emboldened to resort to violence in settling their disputes or when commiting larcenies and other crimes--there appears to be very little consequence to doing so (except for the threat from other armed civilians).

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Yes, the definitive source for unbiased information. Check out the webmasters other sites such as www.peaceuk.net and www.humanshields.org !



Everybody's out to get you, Dutch. It's all a big conspiracy.

[Dutch]

Everybody's out to get you, Dutch. It's all a big conspiracy.

hehe. I'm not the one freaking out because of a very logical, well-thought out and realistic report from the DOD. ;)

[gstelmack]

Ok, my point is that the report shows the good news while ignoring or misrepresenting the bad news, and you think I should support that argument by going over the good stuff again?
I'm having a hard time fathoming how you don't see the bad news the report talks about. It clearly talks about all the attacks, shows we're having a hard time getting electricity up to where we'd like it to be (that graph you keep talking about shows us barely nudging up to the goal finally), and even the summary says the insurgents are still a factor. Nowhere does that report say "Hooray! Iraq is free! Our work is done!". All it says is "things are getting better, but there is still a lot of work to do". It strikes me as a fairly balanced report, showing both the warts (still an active insurgency) and the accomplishments (more business). NO ONE ELSE talks about those accomplishments, ANYWHERE that I've seen. And it's not because they aren't happening, it's because they don't sell papers or TV ad space.

[MrBigglesworth]

I'm having a hard time fathoming how you don't see the bad news the report talks about. It clearly talks about all the attacks, shows we're having a hard time getting electricity up to where we'd like it to be (that graph you keep talking about shows us barely nudging up to the goal finally), and even the summary says the insurgents are still a factor. Nowhere does that report say "Hooray! Iraq is free! Our work is done!".
If that is your opinion, no wonder you feel the media is only talking about the bad news in Iraq.

[Dutch]

I'm having a hard time fathoming how you don't see the bad news the report talks about. It clearly talks about all the attacks, shows we're having a hard time getting electricity up to where we'd like it to be (that graph you keep talking about shows us barely nudging up to the goal finally), and even the summary says the insurgents are still a factor. Nowhere does that report say "Hooray! Iraq is free! Our work is done!". All it says is "things are getting better, but there is still a lot of work to do". It strikes me as a fairly balanced report, showing both the warts (still an active insurgency) and the accomplishments (more business). NO ONE ELSE talks about those accomplishments, ANYWHERE that I've seen. And it's not because they aren't happening, it's because they don't sell papers or TV ad space.

Well said.

[MrBigglesworth]

Here's something more that adds to my point. The report talks about how there are something like 170k trained Iraqis. From everything I have been hearing, that is complete bull manure. Now, look at the changing statements of the DoD:

October 11, 2004:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that the United States could begin to withdraw some troops from Iraq beginning early next year, if newly trained Iraqi security forces can shoulder more of the burden.


February 5, 2005:
The American military has set a target of December for handing over responsibility for security to Iraqi army and police units, says a classified document being circulated among senior officers.

The proposal envisages that after the planned election of a five-year parliament in December the American military would withdraw from patrolling, starting a gradual pull-out from the country.

...the deadline illustrates American confidence that the development of Iraq's security forces is proceeding as planned.


June 18, 2005:
The United States will settle for "nothing less than victory" in Iraq, President Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.


July 27, 2005:
The United States hopes to sharply reduce its forces in Iraq by the middle of next year if all goes according to plan, its top commander on the ground said on Wednesday.
cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2005/07/goalposts_27.html (all citations there)

It seems to me that in October of last year we were 6 months away from drawing down our troops. Today, 9 months later, we are about a year away. Given that, do we really have 170k trained Iraqis ready to take over for us right now? Are things really going as planned? Does there deserve to be a rosy outlook?

[Schmidty]

Hey Mr.Bigglesworth - Do you ever post anything on this board that isn't political? Just curious, and not meant to flame.

[Raiders Army]

Look at what you bolded, biggle.

Could. Set a target date. hopes.

I don't think this equates to a rosy outlook. It looks like planning.

[Raiders Army]

Hey Mr.Bigglesworth - Do you ever post anything on this board that isn't political? Just curious, and not meant to flame.
Check this out:

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?t=41097

[Schmidty]

Check this out:

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?t=41097

Awesome, thanks. That's all I was wondering.