The Day is an Eastern Connecticut newspaper
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/newstand/re.aspx?reIDx=94A80E92-B2EE-4FE0-A540-43E2AA405EB2Those who warned the Bush administration that a war in Iraq would not be a simple process and that the aftermath would be fraught with dangers and political problems were right. Today, the United States needs additional troops to handle violence in Iraq, but other nations are unwilling to send large numbers of forces unless they answer to a United Nations command. The U.S. wants to maintain its command authority.
The U.S., which essentially went ahead without the broad U.N. support for war that it needed, now finds itself asking for help from nations who didn't agree with American foreign policy in the first place. The risk is that this incursion into Iraq may be repeated in other countries with largely the same results.
The facts suggest that the Bush administration, and particularly the Defense secretary, did not understand that a short and convincing U.S. victory on the battlefield would not necessarily translate into a coherent occupation. The men who planned the war did not comprehend that it would be very difficult to restore stability and consistency to the social fabric of Iraq.
Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commanding general of United States forces, says his forces now face a “classical guerrillatype campaign.” Gen. Abizaid's remarks contradict those made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld just two weeks ago. Secretary Rumsfeld said then that the attacks on U.S. forces were too haphazard to qualify as a guerrilla war or organized resistance.
The cold, harsh realities of American intervention in Iraq are setting in. <SNIP>
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