More from Bill

Guest posted by Jean:

Bill takes a breather after his busy day with the grandkids to send us additional informative links. Check them out. Thanks, Bill!

The Iraqi troops we've been training? "We did not sign up to fight Iraqis."

Umm...okay...so precisely why did we train them?

BAGHDAD, April 10 -- A battalion of the new Iraqi army refused to go to Fallujah earlier this week to support U.S. Marines battling for control of the city, senior U.S. Army officers here said, disclosing an incident that is casting new doubt on U.S. plans to transfer security matters to Iraqi forces.

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INTEL DUMP is a little blunter.

In what may be the worst possible development for U.S. officials hoping to hand sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30, 2004, Tom Ricks reports in the Washington Post that a newly-minted Iraqi Armed Forces battalion has refused to go fight in Fallujah against Sunni Muslims fighting U.S. forces there. Mutiny in wartime is always a bad thing; it's a worse thing when the overall security strategy hinges on the ability of the Iraqi armed forces to pacify their own population.

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Today's Washington Post has a lengthy article on what went wrong last week.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2679-2004Apr10.html

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Kevin Drum isn't too pleased either.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_04/003670.php

Treating 9/11 as just another way to hammer his political opponents was an act of unsurpassed callowness, the response of a man who is congenitally unable to view anything except in terms of smallminded partisan advantage. Instead of using 9/11 as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to unite the nation, George Bush viewed it as a way to pick up a few seats in the House. It is this, more than any other single thing, that I most hold against him.