Analysis: Iraqis' Basra fight not going well (CNN)

[Eugene]

Source: CNN

updated 3 hours, 29 minutes ago

Analysis: Iraqis' Basra fight not going well

From Barbara Starr
CNN Pentagon Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Iraqi military push into the southern
city of Basra is not going as well as American officials had hoped,
despite President Bush's high praise for the operation, several
U.S. officials said Friday.

A closely held U.S. military intelligence analysis of the fighting
in Basra shows that Iraqi security forces control less than a quarter
of the city, according to officials in both the United States and
Iraq, and Basra's police units are deeply infiltrated by members of
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.

"This is going to go on for a while," one U.S. military official said.

-snip-

The Basra analysis also shows that militia forces control a wide
swath of cities in Iraq's southeast, including areas near the airport,
where British forces are located, the officials said.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/28/bush.basra/

[lovuian]

1. Our Military need to get the freak out of there

this is Vietnam

[Botany]

2. Vietnam w/ sand

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3075702

The whole thing could collapse in a heartbeat. On Obermann last
night I heard a story about the Govt. forces getting out of their tanks
and walking away.

[appleannie1]

3. Bush hailed this disaster just yesterday. Someone needs to get him off drugs.

[kirby]

4. Of course it isn't...

The Iraqi 'police' / 'army' dont want to fight their comrades in Basra. They will sit back, suck their thumbs, and hope that we will bail them out ('god willing'). And it will ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS!!! We knew this 4003 dead soldiers ago...