Yep, We're Stuck

Remember during the last presidential election, when Bush would go on and on about how many Iraqi soldiers and police we we're training and how great they were going to be, and how our troops would be out of there in no time flat? Well, like everything else he said, that was bullshit.

But the U.S. officers in charge of training the Iraqis say the chance to turn over Iraq to Iraqis may not come any time soon.

Dempsey, commander of Multinational Security Transition Command, whose mission is to help the Iraqi government train the new security forces, acknowledges there are problems.

"Progress is uneven," he said. "It's uneven across the country, it's uneven across units, it's uneven between the army and the police."

The U.S. military says there are 100,000 Iraqi troops. The number given for trained and equipped Iraqi troops has fluctuated wildly over the past year and has been the subject of debate in Washington.

TRANSLATION: They don't want us to know how many troops are actually trained and equipped because we'd all be appalled. Some information has trickled out though, and it ain't good.

At the moment, the United States says some of the formed battalions control their own areas, though they still rely on U.S. support.

Lt. Col. Ross Brown of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment said he is hard on his Iraqi recruits because he wants them to survive. But he sometimes does not get the same commitment in return.

"They didn't do too much work yesterday. They didn't do too much work the day before. They haven't done too much work since they've been here," Brown told CNN.

So, our troops are stuck over there indefinitely. Because you know what you'll get if you turn over control to this unequipped military with half-assed training? The same thing Saddam got from them:

The need to build a new army came after the former U.S. administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, disbanded the 400,000-strong force that had served under Saddam Hussein. At the time he said that many Iraqi soldiers simply laid down their arms and went home, sometimes looting the barracks as they left.

They aren't going to stand and fight unless they feel like they're fighting for "Their Country." And they aren't going to feel like it's "Their Country" as long as 155,000 U.S. troops are occupying it. And even then, every different social, political, and religious group has their own idea about what "Their Country" is. And if the actual country doesn't reflect that, why the hell would they fight to protect it? They wouldn't. In fact, we'd be lucky if they didn't fight AGAINST it. So, quagmire, anyone?