[Sam the Sham]

Frankly, I don't see the "untrained" insurgents running like everyone's business. They are willing to fight and die. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps was not. And Baathist Iraq was a totalitatian police state with an enormous conscript army so there is no shortage of men in Iraq with military/weapons training.

And as for the Tories, Philadelphia had to be evacuated because the British could not maintain their overland supply lines to New York and shipping had to be diverted to counter France's entry into the war. That's what Tories would have been for. Controlling the overland supply lines and patrolling Soprano-land. They couldn't do it.

[.cnI redruM]

No, those would be the ones hiding inside a mosque and carrying around women and children at gunpoint to serve as human shields. Besides, they are currently besieged. Those who are surrounded on all four sides, do not have real estate upon which they can flee.

The loss-exchange ratios since Al-Sadr called his jihad have been one-sided and in US forces' favor. Al-Sadr's will be ground down to nothing in under two months of bombing.