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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (13893)	11/18/2004 6:06:23 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 20773

I expect there will be a steady, slow erosion of support for the war, in the Coalition of the AngloCrusaders and Zionists. The "pacification" of Fallujah has put a nail in the coffin of Iraq. Not just in the government, but the nation itself. The Sunnis have now withdrawn their support for the government and upcoming elections. This means, whether our secular ex-CIA ex-Baathist puppet wins, or the Shia clerics win the election, they won't be able to govern the 40% of the country that is Sunni or Kurd. Balkanization looks like the most likely outcome. This is going to mean some nasty turf wars, along the demographic borders. Baghdad and Kirkuk are going to look like Beirut. Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say. They have further advised that despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number, wage guerrilla attacks and try to foment unrest among Falluja's returning residents, emphasizing that expectations for improved conditions have not been met. The pessimistic analysis is contained in a seven-page classified report prepared by intelligence officers in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the offensive in Falluja was winding down. The assessment was distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in Iraq, where one officer called it "brutally honest." nytimes.com