When The Troops Stop Believing

George Bush believes his troop surge will bring peace and stability to Baghdad and start Iraq on the road to national recovery. As Tom Lasseter of McClatchy Newspapers reports, the grunts on the street in Baghdad have an entirely different view:

"'What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us,' said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. 'Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight.'

"'Once more raids start happening, they'll (insurgents) melt away,' said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. 'And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back.'

"Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than half the city's 8 million people, said the violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided.

"Lt. Antonio Hardy and his men of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Carson, Colo., patrol an area southeast of Sadr City, the stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"A map in Hardy's company headquarters charts at least 50 roadside bombs since late October, and the lieutenant recently watched in horror as the blast from one killed his Humvee's driver and wounded two other soldiers in a spray of blood and shrapnel.

"Soldiers such as Hardy must contend not only with an escalating civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but also with insurgents on both sides who target U.S. forces.

"Almost every foot soldier interviewed during a week of patrols on the streets and alleys of east Baghdad said that Bush's plan would halt the bloodshed only temporarily. The soldiers cited a variety of reasons, including incompetence or corruption among Iraqi troops, the complexities of Iraq's sectarian violence and the lack of Iraqi public support, a cornerstone of counterinsurgency warfare.

"'They can keep sending more and more troops over here, but until the people here start working with us, it's not going to change,' said Sgt. Chance Oswalt, 22, of Tulsa, Okla."

Not everyone the reporter interviewed was so pessimistic. In fact there were some who were quite optimistic, those holding ranks of major or higher. Gee, optimistic brass and demoralized grunts, wasn't there another war just like that?