Analysis: One Wicked Week in Iraq

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/20040412/wl_oneworld/4536834921081770008&cid=655&ncid=1473

WASHINGTON, Apr 12 (IPS) - While the United States does not look quite yet like the ''pitiful, helpless giant'' that tortured Richard Nixon's imagination during the Vietnam War, the past week's events seem to have moved it very much in that direction.


The week, which was supposed to culminate in celebrations of the first anniversary of Baghdad's ''liberation'' by U.S. forces, ended instead with Marines engaged on several fronts in precisely the kind of urban warfare that they blissfully avoided a year ago. U.S.-trained Iraqi police and security forces deserted their posts in the face of insurgent challenges, at least a half-dozen foreign hostages were seized, and the assumptions that underlay a year's worth of "nation-building" in Iraq (news - web sites) were in a shambles.


''What a mess,'' became the dominant refrain when Washington cafe and subway conversations turned to Iraq this week, as the impression that the Bush administration was taken completely by surprise by the latest turn of events appeared to take hold among the city's residents. Much to the administration's chagrin, "Vietnam" was the most frequently cited metaphor on television.


As Georgia Republican and Bush arch-loyalist Sen. Saxby Chambliss confessed Wednesday, the administration ''underestimated just how difficult and complex the job in Iraq would be.''

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