In March, the real bloodbath begins in Iraq. I predict literally hundreds of American deaths.
Here's what terrifies me... in March, we're due for massive troop rotations in Iraq. There are 130k troops there now. I don't have hard numbers, but i figure about 100k of them are due for rotation. That means we have to fly 100,000 troops out. Say, a hundred per flight? That's a THOUSAND flights full of troops. Dozens per day. And an equal number going in, assuming we're not doing a major troop draw-down. Iraqi resistance has successfully damaged planes with anti-aircraft fire, and actually shot down a number of helicopters.
Moreover, we'll have 100,000 new green troops on the ground - troops unaccustomed to the conditions, unaccustomed to incoming fire, unaccustomed to not speaking the language, etc. We'll be back to the sort of panic-fire on civilians that we saw six months ago, and a new set of easier targets for resistance fighters.
This could be real, real ugly.