IRAQ REALITY CATCHES UP WITH PENTAGON

Not a pretty picture in Iraq. And the Pentagon is finally forced to admit it.

"This is reality catching up with Rumsfeld and the Pentagon," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution.
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"The message is more unambiguously bad because the data is bad, and there is no smoke screen to hide behind that the [Iraqi] elections will turn things around, or the training of Iraqi security forces will turn things," O'Hanlon said.

The 63-page report defines the "core conflict in Iraq" now as a struggle between Sunnis and Shiites in which "death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife, with Sunni and Shi'a extremists each portraying themselves as defenders of their respective sectarian groups." Meanwhile, it says, "the Sunni Arab insurgency remains potent and viable."

Thank you, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, neocons, and the Repuglican Congress.

Tags: war in Iraq