[river rat]

Your analysis requires faith in a Muslim, former Republican Guard officer that I lack.

This General would need balls of brass and a wheel barrow to haul them in to kill Islamist Jihadists for the Infidels.

He would have to know, that would make him and his family a target for the lunatics..

Granted -- If a few well known and respected Iraqi Military leaders would step forward and kill to secure the country from the Islamists -- BIG things could happen..

I'm not sure I'm that confident yet...
The Iraqi military has never performed reliably....
I don't expect that to change anytime soon...

Semper Fi

[endthematrix]

He may be less a Muslim than we know. Uncle Sam bestows wealth and power to those who tow the line.

[Travis McGee]

Our goal is to have a turnover and get the hell out. All military decisions will be made with that imperative in mind. We don't want to be holding down hundreds of fortified bunkers all over the Sunni triangle in five years, "proving" that we can control Iraq. We don't want to be manning checkpoints, and searching cars, and getting blown up with IEDs and car bombs. It's not the point to prove we have the baddest military around, everybody knows that. The point is to extricate ourselves, adn leave a govt which is capable of eliminating the terrorist haven problem. If this general is tough enough, great. If he's a new Attaturk, I will shine his boots gladly. That, more than anything, is what Iraq needs: an Attaturk. If Saddam signed his former paychecks, I could care less at this point.