There is a treasure trove of articles in today's (October 19, 2003) Sunday New York Times. The short version as to all this: Its not going to get any better any time soon and we are likely to be in Iraq in time for our 2 year old grandson to serve there.
State Department Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq
Officials acknowledge that the United States was not well prepared for what did occur: chiefly widespread looting and related security threats, even though the State Department study predicted them.
RealityCheck in Iraq: U.S. Faces a Long Stay (That is the headline on page 12 of the NY Times delivered to my door. On the web it is entitled Iraq Resistance Remains Threat to U.S. Forces.)
After American forces killed Saddam Hussein's two sons in a firefight in Mosul, Iraq, in July, United States officials expressed the hope that the episode would take the steam out of the Iraqi resistance.
But three months later the insurgents appear to be as determined as ever. Their attacks have become more sophisticated while terrorist bombings have emerged as a major threat. American commanders insist they are making headway in bringing order to Iraq, but the indications are that the fight will be difficult and prolonged...
Walter P. Lang, the chief Middle East analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Persian Gulf war of 1991, is worried that the guerrilla campaign is intensifying.
"It is my impression that the guerrilla campaign against us is spreading and intensifying and the other side does not seem to be losing enough people in the process," he said. "They are doing well and I am not too happy about that."
Bush Cites Philippines as Model In Rebuilding Iraq
This article would have been vastly improved if it actually when into depth on the similarites and differences between Iraq and the Philippines, but it does offer this nugget:
While the administration often speaks of the occupations of Japan and Germany after World War II as rough models for the effort to rebuild Iraq, Mr. Bush used the visit here to make a less explicit analogy to the American administration of the Philippines, which also led to the formation of a democracy. But the comparison has less power to reassure, given that the Philippine government did not gain full autonomy for five decades.
Five decades, fifty years.
God help us all.