Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The Surge isn't working and the Iraqis aren't standing up.
Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who's been in charge of training police and soldiers in Iraq for nearly two years, gave no indication at a congressional hearing Tuesday that the Iraqis are performing well enough to start letting some American forces go home.McClatchy doesn't have a quote of what he answered his wife and kids, but they do have a bunch of bad news concerning US efforts to build up the Iraqi security forces. The timeline is the same as it was two years ago, no steps forward, no steps back. The only good news is that, 4 years into the war, we should soon be able to know if we trained the guys shooting at us. Probably by checking the serial number on the M-4s they used.
Dempsey said the Iraqis are making progress in building their military and police forces, but he also described serious problems, including the lack of a database to track whether Iraqis who attack Americans were some of those the U.S. trained.
Lawmakers on a House Armed Services subcommittee pressed Dempsey on how soon Iraqis might be ready to take over from Americans. "How would you answer the people back home who are saying, `Are we in a black hole?'" said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.
Dempsey said his wife at times asked him the same thing, as did two of his children who have served in Iraq as junior officers.
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