Summary here and here.

Post-Rummy, reality coalesces, front and center.

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

[snip]

…the team, known as the “Baghdad brains trust” and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations.

“They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about ‘Plan B’ by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it’s getting harder every day,” he said.

[snip]

“The scene is very tense,” the former official said. “They are working round the clock. Endless cups of tea with the Iraqis. But they’re still trying to figure out what’s the plan. The president is expecting progress. But they’re thinking, what does he mean? The plan is changing every minute, as all plans do.”

[snip]

According to a British source, plans are in hand for the possible southwards deployment of 6,000 US troops to compensate for Britain’s phased withdrawal and any upsurge in unrest. Article

Four years ago the woebegone G. Walker administration painted Iraqis as devious masters of every weapon imaginable. Today, that same woebegone administration paints them as boobs who couldn’t screw in a light bulb without a how-to manual being read to them. Self-banishment from the reality-based community has, rightfully, left the woebegone administration aflounder, ripe for a check on their hubris, their mendacity, their power and their exercise thereof.

While it’s difficult to know which armed group planted a bomb, analysts say the casualty numbers show that U.S. officials are exaggerating the importance of EFPs, which military officials say have been used only by Shiites.

“There were relatively few American deaths from explosively formed penetrators until recently, but you can say the same thing about attacks on helicopters or chlorine attacks,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a policy research group in Arlington, Va. “The fact of the matter is that the insurgents, both Sunni and Shiite, are becoming a lot more sophisticated in their tactics. Explosively formed penetrators are only one part of that, and they are not a particularly important part.”

[snip]

Explosively formed penetrators are also known as shaped charges. The warheads were developed after World War I to penetrate tanks and other armored vehicles. Rocket-propelled grenades and antitank missiles are conventional examples. Shaped charges also are used in the oil and gas industry.

John Pike, the executive director of GlobalSecurity.org, an online clearinghouse for military, intelligence and homeland-security information, said that while designing a shaped charge would require expertise, fabricating the devices was simpler, requiring only skill in using metal-machining tools.

“These are not factory-produced munitions,” he said.

Asked who’d have the expertise to manufacture a shaped charge, Pike cited “people who had worked with explosives in the petroleum industry.” In Iraq, he said, “there would be a fair number of those.” Article

Evolution of folly, and the (il)logical next step for the wobegone G. Walker administration: Shorting of body armor, equipped vehicles, and even basic weapons continues, so why not just skip training altogether for newly deploying troops? Can you say “fodder?” We knew that you could.

Though this piece is addressed to the U.K., it is no less applicable to the U.S.

This was always a needless, immoral war. Yet still they won’t admit it.

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When I write about this now I feel like a pub bore. “Have I said this before? Or maybe you knew that already.” But of course I’ve said it, as many others have, and of course you know. We know that we were taken into a needless, foolish, illegal, immoral and ultimately catastrophic war.

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…We know that claims about “WMD” were not some unhappy accident, but a necessity forced upon Blair after he had persuaded himself that he must at all costs support George Bush, right or wrong. We know that the case for war was not made in good faith.

The only people who appear not to know this are our rulers. They cannot acknowledge it, and are obliged to stick to a false account of events. It’s anyone’s guess how long it will be before Iraq recovers from the last four years. Another question is how long it will be before political life in this country recovers from the damage inflicted on it. Article

So how’s that progress going?

The last major British charity working in Iraq pulled out of the country…because the security situation has made it impossible to protect staff. Article