The US desperately needs foreign troops in Iraq to relieve overburdened US forces. Yet given the US' death rate (between one and two soldiers every day), not many nations are choping at the bit.
The one nation that has offered a substantial force -- Turkey -- is literally the last nation that should have forces in Iraq. Turkey has been locked in a hot war with Kurdish rebels both in Turkey and northern Iraq, and the Kurds have vowed to attack any Turkish presence on their soil.
As a result, the US has attempted to place the Turkish forces in Sunni areas of Iraq, further south and west of Kurdish territory. But then, Turkey has no interest in helping provide targets for Sunni guerillas. It'll gladly take casualties, but only if it can keep an eye on its Kurdish enemies.
And the Iraqi ruling council is (rightly) aghast at the idea, arguing that none of the coalition troops should hail from any of Iraq's neighbors. The conflicts of interest are too obvious. Would the US abide Iranian troops on Iraqi soil? Hardly. The locals (and especially the aforementioned Kurds) feel the same about the Turks.
As a result, the Turkish troop decision -- hailed by the US just a week or so ago -- has
now been shelved.
So the administration is back to square one -- trying to find countries to provide troops and money to bail us out of the godforsaken mess Bush has gotten us into.
And while we all wait for Bush to make good, our men and women
continue to die for his folly:
Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a mortar attack near the Iraqi town of Samarra Friday, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said four soldiers were wounded in the attack, which took place just before noon around 100 km (60 miles) north of the capital Baghdad.
The deaths brought to 108 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire in Iraq since Washington declared major combat operations over on May 1.
That's in addition to
another KIA today -- a soldier from the 101st Airborne.
That brings the
total number of dead since Bush's "mission accomplished" moment to
208.
Things are so bad, indeed, that many of the suicides amongst US soldiers in Iraq weren't
really supposed to be suicides:
U.S. soldiers who have committed suicide in Iraq were mostly just desperate to return home, and may have meant only to injure themselves, a military combat stress officer said on Thursday.
Officials in Washington said last week at least 13 soldiers have killed themselves in Iraq, representing more than 10 percent of non-combat deaths. More case are being probed [...]
He said he had personally dealt with two self-inflicted deaths. One soldier shot himself in the leg after being told he could not go home, hitting an artery.
Another, a woman, shot herself in the stomach. He said he thought neither meant to kill themselves.
One ray of light: the Iraq donors conference garnered some $17.5 billion in pledges for
Iraq reconstruction. However, while the US is providing $20 billion this year, those pledges cover a 5-year period, or an average of $3 billion/year. Except that the bulk of that is loans:
The World Bank said it would make between $3 billion and $5 billion available through to 2008, while the International Monetary Fund promised support of between $2.5 billion and $4.25 billion over three years.
Japan's government made the largest offer after the United States, pledging a further $3.5 billion in medium-term loans to bring its total promised aid to $5 billion.
The case can be made that Iraq doesn't need more debt, it needs relief. It needs grants. (That case can essentially be made for the entire third world, actually...)