The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

We are watching our country fall to tatters, due to its own misdeeds under George W. Bush.

William Rivers Pitt The Deep Breath Before the Plunge:

The 'bunker mentality' is about to envelop all of Baghdad. American forces are in the process of sealing the city behind a ring of reinforced checkpoints, berms, trenches, barriers and fences. This has been tried already in the blood-soaked towns of Samarra and Fallujah, and both times, these efforts failed.
Another grim signal that this administration and its Iraq offensive have significantly undercut America's safety can be found within the armed forces itself. Senior Army officials have begun hinting that the size of the Army may be expanded by some 60,000 soldiers, an expensive proposition that has been consistently opposed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In the last several days, one Army brigade has been rushed back to Iraq a month earlier than planned, while another has had its rotation home delayed by six weeks.

'The reason senior Army leaders want to go to a bigger Army,' reported ABC News on Monday, 'is that they are worried about their ability to fight future threats. One official told ABC News, other than the troops now in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are only two to three combat brigades - that's 7,000 to 10,000 troops - who are fully trained and equipped to respond quickly to a crisis. 'If we keep forces in Iraq too long, we risk running into a situation where the force begins to break,' said former US Army officer Andrew Krepenevich.'The 'bunker mentality' is about to envelop all of Baghdad. American forces are in the process of sealing the city behind a ring of reinforced checkpoints, berms, trenches, barriers and fences. This has been tried already in the blood-soaked towns of Samarra and Fallujah, and both times, these efforts failed.