Honest Argument - Node: Lack of strong government undercuts Iraqi military

Argument:	U.S. can still salvage the Iraqi state
Node type:	This node refutes its parent
Parent Node:	Accelerate training of and transfer to Iraqi military and police
Node Text:	Lack of strong government undercuts Iraqi military "Military officers and other experts interviewed in recent days said that the Iraqi training program has worked but that its success is undercut by the lack of strong Iraqi political leadership. "You fix the government, you fix the problem," said an Army battalion commander who has seen hard fighting near Baghdad this summer. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld landed squarely in this camp recently. Referring to numbers of trained Iraqi forces, he told a reporter: "If we look at it one-dimensionally like that, there's no answer to the question, because the problem is not a military problem. In fact, the reality is that it's a political governance problem, and it's a governmental problem, and it's a problem of reconciliation." In this view, it doesn't matter how many Iraqi troops are trained if there is no government to lead them. "I believe that you could have a million Iraqis within the Iraqi security forces and still be ineffective against the insurgents," said an Army colonel who recently returned from a year in Iraq." http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Node Created:	Ulysses Berman — 2006-11-30 20:43:16

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