Tragic few days
If only reality would stop playing Lennon ("can't get much worse") to Rumsfeld's McCartney ("got to admit it's getting better...all the time"), we could maybe feel like we get an honest picture from our own government of what's happening in Iraq. They are trying to tell us that only a few militants/thugs/terrorists are causing problems across the country. But what's becoming more and more clear is that this is an uprising--organized, broad-based (Billmon frames the "ominous" scene of Sunni and Shi'a Muslims collaborating here), desperate and ruthless. In more than one major Iraqi city, we have lost control.

"U.S.-led troops fought fierce battles with Sunni and Shi'ite rebels Thursday and a spate of kidnappings snared foreigners as Iraq descended into bloody chaos not seen since Saddam Hussein's fall a year ago.

A previously unknown Iraqi group said it was holding three Japanese hostages and threatened to "burn them alive" unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from Iraq within three days.
[SNIP]
The top U.S. general in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, acknowledged the southern towns of Najaf and Kut were in the hands of a militia loyal to radical Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

On the eve of the anniversary of Baghdad's capture, U.S.-led forces were locked in urban warfare in the central Sunni town of Falluja, the Shi'ite shrine city of Kerbala and Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of the capital, witnesses said."

I have no doubt that we have the personnel and the might to kill our way out of the immediate problem. And now that we're in this corner, what other options are there? But how long before they figure out that technique ultimately causes more trouble than it solves in the long run? And that's to say nothing of the internal pressure that is sure to build in the next several weeks: I am sure that more than a few US soldiers and their families have been looking toward June 30 as a watershed, when the governance of Iraq is set to be turned over. Who was it that said to beware the light at the end of the tunnel, as it may be an oncoming train? It looks more and more like the threat to coalition forces will increase as the day approaches, not decrease; that the troop volume is more likely to go up than come down; that tours of duty will more likely lengthen, not shorten.

If the violence continues at this level up to and beyond that date, I really fear for the emotional well-being of the troops and their families. In interviews this week, Rumsfeld has been scrambling to control expectations of the handover date. In every one I've read he's made sure to point out that the US will still be responsible for security, and that--essentially--nothing will change. He added to that his command of current public opinion in a local TV interview in Hampton Roads, VA:

"Q:...40 percent of Americans now believe we should not be there. And I know you’re not one to subscribe to the latest polls. But there are people who feel like we shouldn’t be there. What if they use June 30th as the next benchmark to say, 'and Americans are still dying beyond June 30th,' I hope not, but chances are, it’ll keep happening.

Rumsfeld: Well, if you do something in life, somebody’s not going to like it. So you’ve got a choice. You either do nothing, in which case, it’s irrelevant, or you do something and it’s always going to be 1 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent who aren’t going to like it.

Q: Forty percent.

Rumsfeld: Fine. That’s fair enough."