[USS Alaska]

The much anticipated attack follows months of hands off policy as troops were routinely sniped and attacked with orders not to retaliate.

WTF? How in the world could our guys ever win if they were forbidden to return fire? I'm a Bush backer, but if we were not permitting our guys to whip the bad guys, what in the hell were we doing?

[jmc1969]

Playing PC games is what we were doing.

[Marine_Uncle]

"...what in the hell were we doing?"
The issue is more what the hell was Maliki and his crew thinking. Our soldiers, Marines and some Iraqi units had started to cordon off the lower part of the city to the extent people where fleeing to temp refuge camps in anticipation of a long bloody battle.
The US had the go for it, the Iraqi said no. Almost every miscalculation in Iraq is not of the US forces but of the reluctance of the IG to allow us to rid their country earlier on of the hadji.
Finally, Maliki has been forced into submission. Ever since we have seen Iraqi start to realize they must take strong actions against all forms of the insurgency and the sectarian elements that have allowed the L/MSM so much free news in the way of bloody attacks, we now see them willing to allow Iraqi soldiers blood to be spilled to retake their country from the goon squads. The tide has finally changed.