NYT- Success in Iraq Depends on Services and Jobs, General Says

[Rose Siding]

KUWAIT CITY, Aug. 18 - An American general who commanded 38,000 soldiers in the securing and rebuilding of Baghdad writes in a new essay that success in Iraq cannot be achieved solely by training local security forces. He says the military must also work to provide essential city services, create jobs and promote local governmental control.

The officer, Maj. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of the Army's First Cavalry Division, said that military missions must not shortchange reconstruction and democratization efforts, even while it is necessary to combat the insurgents.

"A gun on every street corner, although visually appealing, provides only a short-term solution" and "does not equate to long-term security grounded in a democratic process," the essay says.

"The cultural reality is that no matter what the outcome of a combat operation, for every insurgent put down, the potential exists to grow many more if cultural mitigation is not practiced," says the essay, which was co-written by Maj. Patrick R. Michaelis, an operations officer with one of the division's cavalry squadrons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/international/middleeast/22reconstruct.html

[MichiganVote]

1. There is no success in Iraq and they know it. Point the finger anywhere

but at the military. Standard military pass the buck. This administration is squarely to blame.

[tuckessee]

2. I guess all Iraq needs is....

....Wal-Mart, dog catchers & Merry Maids.

[oscar111]

3. Job Shortage 14 Million fuels crime here too

Crime - mostly people trying to live with no income

Solution - end the Job Shortage ..see sig for gov documentation of it.

Here and Iraq, end the Job Shortage.

bush's blinding ideology __ Job Shortage puts downward push on wages. Which ups the boss' profits nicely. So, keep a huge Job Shortage around . Crime? only on the bad side of town. Up here, we have private patrols, gated communities.

[oscar111]

4. try living without dog catchers

i was once attacked by three strays, who formed a circle... the one in back would run in to bite the ankle. Turn, and another one runs in.

Merry maids.. what are they?

[NYC]

5. Merry Maids is a cleaning service.

You call that company, and they send a cleaning woman.

[necso]

6. In part,

I like what the General is saying. But jobs and services (and the unimpeded flow of goods) require maintaining a considerable degree of civil order (battling corruption, etc).

As for a gun on every street corner, it's more like 2 (or more) riflemen at every intersection (or every other intersection -- but not out of sight of each other), with (light) reinforcements immediately available and (heavy) strike forces readily available.

But we are not going to be restoring coherent civil order. The forces that this would require now are much greater than would have been immediately (or shortly) after the invasion (where we moved too slowly into the cities, invaded with the wrong mix and numbers of forces, etc), because we are starting now from a basis of no coherent civil order (and little enough civil order of any kind -- other than that enforced largely by forces that we would probably have to fight to establish coherent civil order, ie, civil order under unified, centralized, consistent control), and we do not have an adequately functioning government to assist us.

It's rather like if we had disbanded the South Vietnamese government (which includes military, police forces, etc) and started from scratch, instead of trying to use it.

The forces that it would take to clean up the mess in Iraq now are simply beyond our means. -- The game is just not worth the candle.

This is, and has always been, a delusional adventure. Unfortunately, the price that we will have to pay has yet to be completely revealed -- and we will be paying it for a long, long time.

These idiots should never have been let come to the seat of power. And when they used 9/11 to implement their extremist agenda, this should have been recognized and stopped.

[1932]

7. Iraq is about shipping wealth of Iraq to the US via construction contracts

and giving US oil companies control of the oil fields.

Success in Iraq (as defined by human justice and not greed) depends on allowing Iraq to profit from Iraq's human and natural resources.