US general: Iraqi security needs years of U.S. help

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces will need years of mentoring and support from U.S. forces, a senior U.S. commander said on Friday, warning against an American withdrawal before local forces can operate independently.

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq's vast western Anbar province, said attacks there had declined sharply over the past year.

But he said Iraqi security forces still needed more experience so a U.S. withdrawal does not allow al Qaeda to regain ground.

"I see that experience happening every day, but I don't see it happening overnight," said Gaskin, speaking by video link from Iraq. "I believe it's another couple of years in order to get to that."

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N20370528.htm

"The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad and uh uhh somehow take control of the country strikes me as as an extremely uh serious one in terms of uh what we'd have to do once we got there. You'd probably have to put some new government in place. It's not clear what kind of government that would be, how long you'd have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of uh the struggle over who's going to govern in Iraq uh strikes me as a uh classic definition of a quagmire." Vice-President Dick Cheney, 1991

Hear it in his own voice right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGIe1gPaTXY

Remember what our president said about them and the stuff leaked to the complicit media. They were top notch. Where did they go? Bremer disbanded them for Rumsfeld. I hate all of them even down to the lowest rep congress person's aide. We should be after them and not the gays. Throw them in JAIL I see hundreds of men in the streets of Baghdad not doing anything but screaming and yelling. Put them in the army and then let us leave. Let them keep their own oil. That way they can pay for this debacle. Rant for this hour.

Give them a problem so's you can find a solution to it.:(

He's smoking some powerful hallucinogenic dope

years ago.

This American "white man's burden" bullshit needs to go. For good.

and attacks us from behind? THAT Iraqi Security?

What do they need us for, target practice?