-legion, in the AF, whose idea of holding ground involves a 10-year lease w/option to buy...

And while I respect Col Devlin's candor, I'm underwhelmed by his proposals.

Devlin outlined several possibilities for bringing stability to the area, including establishing a Sunni state in Anbar, creating a local paramilitary force to protect Sunnis and to offset Iranian influence, shifting local budget controls, and strengthening a committed Iraqi police force that has “proven remarkably resilient in most areas.”

Establishing 'mini-states' strikes me as a very iffy idea... unless they care more about establishing their own national entities that killing their rivals, it'll be largely indistinguishable from the worst days of Bosnia. And create a 'local paramilitary force'? Out of what? The guys who couldn't get into the death squads Iraqi Police? Shifting local budget controls requires a functioning central government, which I'm not convinced of lately, and the current Iraqi PD has not shown itself to be nearly as 'effective' as he thinks...

Now, *that* would be a sight.

For 3 years the Media has planned our surrender. Yet for 10, the diligent work of over 26 Nations continues to protect freedoms across the globe, and help allies share strategies to prevent & root-out terror. (VIDEO!)...

And then there is this paragraph:

The senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work, said yesterday that he largely agrees with Devlin's assessment, except that he thinks it overstates the role of al-Qaeda in the province. "We argue that it is a major element in Anbar, but it is not the largest or most dominant group," he said.

Which totally pitches the headline on its ass.

On this one, I'm with Bill at INDC Journal who's put together an impressive list of previous reports showing that the indigenous tribes and insurgents have the ascendancy in the region, not Al Qaida. You should check it out, James - especially Bill Roggio's stuff.

Roggio goes into detail about the ongoing feud between the Sunni tribes of the Anbar region and Al Qaeda. This, in a nutshell, is why talk of Al Qaeda winning anything except a swift death when U.S. troops leave is rubbish. Bill oversteps the mark, though, when he ascribes the feud to clever U.S. policy. The feud began and then the U.S. military decided to jump on a great bandwagon. One London Times article he cites has a U.S. officer saying: the sheikhs are only “pro-American in the sense that they are fighting the same enemy”. That seems about right to me.

Regards, Cernig

Andrew Sullivan linked to this article today, providing somewhat good news about progress in Ramadi.

http://www.fumento.com/military/ramadireturn.html