Summary here.

Trying to polish the apple is a (no pun intended) fruitless task when it is pocked with wormholes.

In Washington, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told senators that the crisis was “moving in a negative direction” and that “the term ‘civil war’ accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict.” Article

More:

Attacks against coalition forces in Iraq averaged nearly 180 a day in January, the highest level since major combat operations ended and more than double the rate one year ago, according to intelligence officials.

Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday said the attacks matched the previous high, set in October 2006.

Attacks on civilians also reached a new high, with almost 50 per day in January, according to the agency. Attacks on Iraqi Security Forces remained consistent with recent months, at about 30 a day.

[snip]

McConnell said intelligence experts are keeping a close eye on assistance coming to insurgents across Iraq’s borders. However, he noted that most of the fighting in Iraq is still mainly sectarian conflicts.

The Defense Intelligence Agency estimates that less than 10 percent of insurgents in Iraq are foreign fighters, and the majority of those are suicide bombers. Article

If actually taiking (and not dictating), especially with those openly antagoinistic to the occupation, well and good — but the expressed stance of the woebegone G. Walker administration belies much in the way of any hope (though this may, if as it seems to appear, represent an end-run around the White House and the V.P.’s office by Secretary Gates).

Regarding reports about talks between the Multi-National forces and commanders in the Al-Mahdi Army, Caldwell said, “With the Iraqi Government’s blessing, the Multi-National forces have on-going talks with militia groups, including the Al-Mahdi Army. However, the Al-Mahdi Army is so fractured, and for example, we might speak to one group in Baghdad, but another group in Basra would be different”. He added that, “It would be irresponsible not to pursue all avenues – the political part of the plan means engagement and bringing all into the political process. There are irreconcilable groups, that includes Al-Qaeda and Shiaa extremist elements that we view as being irreconcilable – these are often personality based rather than group-based”. Article

The unrelenting, overweening pall of chaos.

Baghdad taxi driver Dhia Mohammed Mahdi embraces his family each day before he hits the city’s streets. No one has to say why, but they all know the reason — they may never see each other again.

[snip]

Once he noses his white Hyundai with its yellow “Taxi” sign out on to the streets, he’s fair game for all the dangers lurking in a wasteland bristling with weaponry, primed with roadside bombs and torn apart by sectarian violence.

“Am I scared? Of course I’m scared. But then just about everyone in Baghdad is scared,” Mahdi told AFP. “Unless you can get a job with the government, whatever you do is risky.”

[snip]

His biggest worries, he said, are not roadside bombs — as might have been expected — but the ubiquitous armed convoys.

“Of course everybody out on the roads is worried about bombs. I’ve been close to many bombs, and once my car was hit by falling debris after a blast.”

More dangerous than bombs, he said, are military convoys and the private security agents who zig-zag cowboy style through the traffic, making sure their high-paying clients make it safely through the daily mayhem.

“The military convoys are dangerous because if they come under attack they open random fire and shoot everything in sight.”

Drivers also have to contend with private security teams, Baghdad’s squads of foreign and Iraqi guns for hire.

“Just five days ago I saw a woman driver shot dead in front of my eyes,” said Mahdi, clearly still unnerved by the incident.

“She was driving and they wanted to pass but she was not able to give way, so they just opened fire at her. The car crashed and I saw police pulling her body out of the vehicle.” Article

North of Baghdad, Samarra has been “lost” and “taken” multiple times, has been bermed and depopulated. Two pieces that amply demonstrate that chaos abides, and the futility of the primacy of a purely militaristic “solution.”

#1:

Come to the mosque and swear allegiance to al-Qaeda, the letter warned, or you will die and your family will be slaughtered. Also, bring US$1,200.

It had the desired effect on American efforts to build an Iraqi security force here.

Nearly a third of the local police force went to the mosque, paid the money and pledged their allegiance. Another third was killed. By late October, only 34 local police officers were left to try to maintain order in this city of 100,000.

Events in Baghdad have dominated the news as American troops move aggressively to quell the sectarian violence that has set Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods at war with each other. But a visit to this restive city is a reminder not only of the many fronts of the war, but also of its many complexities.

[snip]

Lt Col Viet X. Luong, the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 505th Parachute Regiment in the 82nd Airborne Division, said he was seeing an increase in militant activity to the south of Samarra.

That, he said, is partially a result of the Americans’ successes in the city, but also likely the result of Sunni militants moving out of Baghdad to escape the American offensive there.

“We are getting attacked between the seams,” he said.

Over the past five months, his soldiers in the city have conducted more than 1,000 raids, been attacked by improvised explosive devices 69 times and come under direct fire attack at least 85 times, the colonel said.

There are at least two different forces in Samarra battling the Americans: the Islamic Army of Iraq, a homegrown militant group made up largely of former Baathists, and al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is aided and sometimes directed by foreign fighters.

Some members of the Islamic Army of Iraq, the main Sunni militant group in Samarra, said in interviews that they were pressing al-Qaeda to focus on Shia militias and not the Americans, whom they see as a temporary buffer in their fight against the Shias.

Local residents say that al-Qaeda is so bold as to even run a training camp within the city, managing to avoid the American patrols and intimidating the local population through murder and kidnapping.

[snip]

…”No judge can come to Samarra because he will be killed,” said Lt Col Abdul Jalil Hanni, the commander of the local police force, which now numbers 114. Many new recruits come from Sunni cities farther north.

There are another 201 national police officers in the city, but nearly 70 per cent of them are Shia, presenting a host of additional complications in this Sunni city.

While their commander is Sunni, residents interviewed over the past two weeks said they did not have the slightest faith in them. The Iraqi army does not patrol in the city. Article

#2:

A number of families have fled the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, saying that if the government does not intervene, their city will end up like Kabul during the Taliban era.

The fleeing families say that extremists have renamed the city “the Islamic Emirate of Samarra, which is one of the emirates of the Islamic State of Iraq, declared by Al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers last year.

Abdul-Karim Sadi, 46, said: “We and our families have gradually fled our city leaving behind our possessions except for some money that will sustain us for a few months. The situation in Samarra and its suburbs has become intolerable because extremist groups have begun interfering in people’s private lives to the point of interfering in private relationships between husbands and wives.”

He pointed out that these groups “began arriving in Samarra specifically a year and a half ago. Most of their leaders hold Arab citizenships, including Syrians, Algerians, Egyptians, and Yemenis, along with some Iraqi tribesmen who assist them and offer them facilities. These groups have been given houses and farms to turn them into training camps. They will train the sons of the city who refuse to join them so that they will force them to join them in the future by threatening to kill their families if they refuse.”

Muhannad al-Samarra’i, 31, a policeman in Samarra, said he received direct threats from these extremist groups to quit work for the police force in the city; otherwise, he will be killed along with his family if he continued to work with the government, which they described as collaborator. He added: “These groups are tightening their grip on the city and its people in the absence of government security establishments, which have weak presence, and only in the center of the city.” He said that US forces look on what is happening in the city and on what those groups are doing without really intervening to eliminate them. US forces sometimes let these groups do what they want in the city and its helpless people.” Article

Meanwhile in the west:

If the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment is going to rid the town of Barwanah violent insurgents, it depends on 80 men from the Nimrawi tribe huddled in one dark room of a large house down the street. It is protected by concertina wire, tanks, Marines, soldiers, and one 19-year old Barwanah police officer who searched them when they came in. He is the only police officer on the entire force.

His name is Wahad. He wears a black ski mask to hide his face. His neighbors believe he was arrested and detained by the Americans; they don`t know he joined the police force in December. He has only been home twice in two months, and then under cover of night and with a phalanx of Marines to protect him. Article

Keeping up with the courts-martial:

An Army medic who fatally shot a fellow soldier during a night of heavy drinking in Iraq was sentenced Tuesday to 33 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Spc. Chris Rolan would serve just 20 years because of an agreement in which he pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder, violating a general order against drinking in Iraq, communicating a threat and reckless endangerment.

Rolan, 23, of Albuquerque, N.M., will forfeit all his pay and allowances, receive a dishonorable discharge and be reduced to the rank of private under the sentence by Col. Richard Gordon.

[snip]

Initially, Rolan also was accused of shooting at his roommate, Pvt. Mastermichael Ramsey of Milwaukee, on the night that Paytas was killed, but the Army has dropped that charge without explanation. Article