How goes Iraq?

I expect Bush, on his vacation, is welcoming the public distraction by the South Pacific.

Put aside the stunning fact that American officials could not figure out that people anywhere will fight for their families instead of for the foreign invaders; the recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies states that the numbers of trained Iraqi army and police are far below what is required. Only one example: As of Dec. 6, the Pentagon reported that 27,000 trained army troops were needed, but that only 3,428 were listed as "trained/on hand."

[...]

"Senior U.S. military sources in the region tell CNN the city of Mosul has been wracked by violence for weeks. Local Iraqi security forces have virtually melted away, say those officials. One senior U.S. officer tells CNN, we have no Iraqi police force up in Mosul today.

"The problem in getting Iraqis to fight the insurgency may be deeper across Iraq. The military assessment now is that the U.S. miscalculated Iraqi tribal and religious loyalties and did not realize Iraqis are likely to fight only for their brethren ... So in cases like Mosul, they simply will not fight the intimidation of the insurgents, the U.S. now believes."

And remember, until now Mosul was one of our success stories!

Yahoo News article