thedrifter
05-17-06, 02:32 PM
In Iraq war, time is a weapon
[ Wednesday, May 17, 2006 10:07:46 pmREUTERS ]
WASHINGTON: US forces in Iraq, locked in a war that cannot be won by military force alone, are facing a weapon that tends to favour insurgents time.
The war is in its fourth year and public support is waning. According to opinion polls taken in May, a majority of Americans think that invading Iraq was a mistake and that things in Iraq are going badly.
The souring public mood does not bode well for the prospects of prevailing over an insurgency US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld has said could last another decade.
Military officers and experts involved in drafting a new counterinsurgency manual for the US Army and the Marine Corps say that patience is one of the keys for success in winning against the kind of enemy the US is facing in Iraq.
"The (counterinsurgency) effort requires a firm political will and extreme patience," says the draft, now going through revisions and expected to be issued in summer. Military history shows that past counterinsurgency campaigns in other parts of the world have taken between five and 15 years.
The manual, the first new edition for the Army in 20 years and for the Marines in 25, is being written against the background of what the army describes as its most profound transformation in half a century, a massive programme to change mindsets away from traditional army-against-army warfare to the type of irregular conflict the United States is confronting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ellie
[ Wednesday, May 17, 2006 10:07:46 pmREUTERS ]
WASHINGTON: US forces in Iraq, locked in a war that cannot be won by military force alone, are facing a weapon that tends to favour insurgents time.
The war is in its fourth year and public support is waning. According to opinion polls taken in May, a majority of Americans think that invading Iraq was a mistake and that things in Iraq are going badly.
The souring public mood does not bode well for the prospects of prevailing over an insurgency US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld has said could last another decade.
Military officers and experts involved in drafting a new counterinsurgency manual for the US Army and the Marine Corps say that patience is one of the keys for success in winning against the kind of enemy the US is facing in Iraq.
"The (counterinsurgency) effort requires a firm political will and extreme patience," says the draft, now going through revisions and expected to be issued in summer. Military history shows that past counterinsurgency campaigns in other parts of the world have taken between five and 15 years.
The manual, the first new edition for the Army in 20 years and for the Marines in 25, is being written against the background of what the army describes as its most profound transformation in half a century, a massive programme to change mindsets away from traditional army-against-army warfare to the type of irregular conflict the United States is confronting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ellie