[Peace-discuss] Losing Iraq war

[C. G. Estabrook]

http://www.salon.com/

08:55 PST, Oct. 31, 2004

Colin Powell believes U.S. is losing Iraq war

By David Talbot

Secretary of State Colin Powell has privately confided to friends in
recent weeks that the Iraqi insurgents are winning the war, according to
Newsweek.

The insurgents have succeeded in infiltrating Iraqi forces "from top to
bottom," a senior Iraqi official tells Newsweek in tomorrow's issue of
the magazine, "from decision making to the lower levels."

This is a particularly troubling development for the U.S. military, as it
prepares to launch an all-out assault on the insurgent strongholds of
Fallujah and Ramadi, since U.S. Marines were counting on the newly trained
Iraqi forces to assist in the assault.

Newsweek reports that "American military trainers have been frantically
trying to assemble sufficient Iraqi troops" to fight alongside them and
that they are "praying that the soldiers perform better than last April,
when two battalions of poorly trained Iraqi Army soldiers refused to
fight."

If the Fallujah offensive fails, Newsweek grimly predicts, "then the
American president will find himself in a deepening quagmire on
Inauguration Day."

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