STORM2K

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/ ... index.html

Several days ago Senator John McCain said he thought US troop levels in Iraq were inadequate . Should the US increase troop strength and if so by how much to help put down the insurgents??

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... usat_x.htm


Mike

I think we should pass the troop strength over to the newcomers...but keep our spec-ops in place, and train as many Iraqis as we can, preferably Shia, Assyrian Christians and Kurds, to police and secure their own country.

Sunnis? I wouldn't trust them as dogcatchers.

We should let other countries help.... not continue to import american troops. (And people wonder why we have a deficit... geeze... can't we let someone else help with the security?)

ameriwx2003 wrote:http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/11/sprj.irq.cia/index.html

Several days ago Senator John McCain said he thought US troop levels in Iraq were inadequate . Should the US increase troop strength and if so by how much to help put down the insurgents??

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... usat_x.htm


Mike

More troops mean more targets. We simply must stay the course and allow our counter-insurgents to wear them down. As the political situation in Iraq improves, the Iraqi people will take care of any insurgents left over.

stormchazer wrote:

ameriwx2003 wrote:http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/11/sprj.irq.cia/index.html

Several days ago Senator John McCain said he thought US troop levels in Iraq were inadequate . Should the US increase troop strength and if so by how much to help put down the insurgents??

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... usat_x.htm


Mike

More troops mean more targets. We simply must stay the course and allow our counter-insurgents to wear them down. As the political situation in Iraq improves, the Iraqi people will take care of any insurgents left over.

... I think the above reply is best solution. Although its terrible for any of our soldiers to die, as some have said before, its really not as bad as the media makes it look. For example, in the height (1968-1969) of the Vietnam conflict we had an average of 100 guys a DAY (600-700 per week, 5000+ per year) killed !! Its only 1-2 % of that in the current conflict, yet they paint it as the same situation.

We need more troops from somewhere. I thought I heard on the news last week that 85,000 were going to be sent over. We need to some type of governing agency consisting of Iraqis in place there now, temporary or permanent.

I have serious doubts about a competent Iraqi Army anytime soon. Our troops are some of the best in the world (good training, volunteers, etc...) , Iraqs are some of the worst! Only prob is i don't know where they can get more of ours without depleting our reserves! We have no draft (and shouldn't) to quickly get more, and even if we did, the DRAFT is what produces BAD soldiers! Perhaps somehow the Iraqis can be brought up to par.... McCain is right on this issue. This is the main (I DON'T think this is a Vietnam situation) similarity i see with Vietnam, ask any vet and they will tell you the ARVN (South Vietnamese Army-Vietnams version of what the new Iraqi Army will be) were all but useless, even after 5 years of training refinement.

"Not as bad as it looks"?==one dead soldier is horrible!

This is one of the reasons Paul Bremmer went to the White House today, to discuss the growing violence and alternatives including more Iraqi involvement.

IMHO... I think we need to pony up and finish what we started. We can't just dump this off to the Iraqis and wash our hands of this or Iraq will end up becoming a hotbed for terrorists I am afraid. I agree with John McCain lets add more troops and lets finish the job before we leave Iraq or we will end up having to come back again.

sunnyday wrote:"Not as bad as it looks"?==one dead soldier is horrible!

It is...and in the time it took you to write that post, 10 people died in car accidents.

ameriwx2003 wrote:IMHO... I think we need to pony up and finish what we started. We can't just dump this off to the Iraqis and wash our hands of this or Iraq will end up becoming a hotbed for terrorists I am afraid. I agree with John McCain lets add more troops and lets finish the job before we leave Iraq or we will end up having to come back again.

More troops do not equal security. We have more soldiers in the Iraq Capitol then anywhere else in the theater but is it the safest place? I think this is a matter of tactics. In Vietnam we face not just insurgents but a North Vietnamesse regular army. We also faced a people whose own government was as corrupt as the insurgents. In a guerilla war, position and psychology plus control of the hearts of the people are the main tools not one mass of troops overrunning another.

Numbers are not going to beat the insurgents in Iraq. Tactics and political pressure will defeat them. You place a larger force there and the common Iraqi will feel more like the occupied and the insurgents will have more targets to shoot at.

I don't particularly know what we should do... I do think its not that bad, bad yes, but... We have a distorted , sterilized view of war these days due to various things . Like they say, War IS Hell. You can't go to hell and expect a day in the Bahamas!

Part of the problem in Iraq is our troops are spread to thin.. some ammunition depots aren't even guarded!!!!!!!!. We need enough troops to give security( policing and trying to secure borders) and defeat the insurgents and train the Iraqis .

All of the above comments are correct in one fashion or another. The Iraq situation is neither black or white, there are too many details to just give a blanket cause otherwise the problem would have been identified and solved a long time ago. It seems that even though we're training local Iraqis to do security and start repairing their infrastructure, etc. etc., the locals aren't prudent about their new responsibilities or jobs. They're not 'measuring up' as was related by coalition members trying to help get the country back on it's own feet. There is so much in-fighting between the factions, and people out for themselves rather than for the good of the country, that it's difficult to build concensus and a 'vision' to work toward. Management at its nightmarish worst. Think about the bombings last week of the police depts and buildings. What happened just before that? Those selecting new people for the police jobs turned away a whole bunch of people because they were overwhelmed, and different groups were favored over others. That caused alot of hard feelings and resentment...a couple days later, kaboom. Now you have to admit, this is not America where if you do something like that, there are 500 law enforcement and corporate types all over the place in a second running investiations til someone is found responsible. Over there, there are too many people, and nobody cares to do the footwork or the tedious tasks and they just say WTF. Not the same mindset. They've got different priorities and until we can synch up with all of those, it's going to be an uphill battle I think.

Here I am again, with my so called "un-americanism".
19 italians killed, most of them Carabinieri sent there because Italy wants to have a finger in the pie.
Those Carabinieri were just helping the population, running hospitals, distributing food, trying to resume local authorities' power.
They were and are all veterans from Kosovo, Africa, Lebanon and many other countries where UN was asking for them. One of the killed was particularly dedicated to children, because he lost his 6 years son due leukemia and then he was dedicating his life in helping children everywhere in the world.
Reports say the local community of Nasirya was having good relationship with our troops, that the locals are very sorry and afraid, that who committed the attack was a foreign terrorist.
The escalation is clear: firs US troops, then UN, then Red Cross, then the Allied. The warning is clear: nobody is safe here, we do not want you here, go back home.
The main mistake was to invade an Islamic country because of "war on terror". This is giving all integralists in the world a strong reason to react.
I don't feel safe at all because Saddam's not leading anymore his country, I live in fear because we invaded another country fluttering the flag of freedom, when it is not true!
It is true for those fighting there, I'm sure every soldier from US, UK and other places are there because they believe in what they're doing, as our Carabinieri were believing in helping people.
But they've been sent there for a sinister reason. War in Iraq has no reduced terrorism at all, it has given it a reason more.
Is this un-American? Shall I stand on my knees thanking the sky because 60 years ago you came to Europe? (let me remind u that Italy was the enemy those days) Shall I and the whole Europe be delighted of every action America takes because of WWII? I guess not. I guess I can say "this war is wrong, the reasons claimed are wrong".
We invaded a country, the reactions are under everybody's eyes: we cannot protect the population, because our own troops cannot protect themselves.

Ciao
Paolo

Paolo - you are welcome to your opinion. I may not agree with you, but it is interesting to here thoughts from those outside of the US/UK.