White House Press Briefing Jun 16, 2005:

Q Yes. Is there any idea how long a last throe lasts for?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve.

Well since Scotty is being so shy, let me help him out. Despite what’s being pronounced from the podium, the Soliders on the ground, think they are in it in for the long haul.  And if this is the last throes, they are  going to last a minimum of two more years:

Battalion intelligence officer 2nd Marine Division Captain Thomas Sibley Jun 21, 2005:

“Yeah, in a couple of weeks they’ll be back and they’ll make up for these losses. But that’s fine, because we’re not beating them in two weeks. We’re beating them in two years.“,

Now perhaps we know why Scotty refused to answer the question.  Joe Montana in his prime couldn’t make throes this long.

And if the latest US  “victory” is any indication, two years appears to be wildly optimistic:

– U.S. Marines claimed success…in another battle against insurgents… but acknowledged that the war was far from over and that guerrillas would soon recover lost ground.

After four days of bombardment and street-to-street gunbattles, the Marines cleared Karabila –

But U.S. officers and local people in the town, badly damaged by the fighting, said the insurgents would be back.

Well at least the military was claiming

success

The Karabila assault, was a success in military terms..[it]began with air strikes and an advance into the town… U.S.-led forces killed 45-50 insurgents.

But somehow the term “pyrrhic victory” just kept popping into my mind as I read this story:

One Marine was killed and six wounded, Mundy said. His forces killed three civilians and wounded two in a firefight and made no count of the number of civilians who may have been hurt from afar by air or artillery strikes,

The chief doctor at the area’s main hospital in Qaim, Hamdi al-Alusi, said on Tuesday he had counted 25 civilian dead and feared others lay buried in the rubble of their homes. .

Meanwhile Marines endeared themselves to the local non-radical elments of the city by treating their property and belongings with delicacy and respect:

 

U.S. and Iraqi troops searched every house, often only after the front gate was blown off. Weapons caches were detonated on the spot bringing houses down around them.

Whole streets were obliterated.

So we blast the hell out of a town, inflict untold suffering on its residents and then withdraw, letting the bad guys come flooding back in days later?  Well I certainly can’t think of any better way to  demonstrate our commitment to the freedom, and well being of the Average Iraqi, can you?

Somehow the overall strategy this operation was a part of seemed  eerily familiar:

 20,000 Marines who patrol the vast desert  of Anbar province — nearly a third of  Iraq’s territory — [ they] lack the numbers to stay in areas after battles.

The result has been a series of operations to clear insurgent strongholds along the Euphrates, after which the Marines withdraw to their bases….

Mohammed Solfeij, 33, whose house is on the outskirts of Karabila near where the Americans first entered the town, said the insurgents would be back “as soon as the Americans leave.”

Wait…its coming back tome, we’ve used this strategy  before in , let see….Was it…, maybe VIETNAM!

Huh, I wonder how that war turned out for us?

I thought the lesson of that war was to pay attention to winning Heart and Minds, not battles.  If that’s true we’ve got a LOT of work to do, and our Victory, just made things worse:

For Suleiman Salim Hussein, 39, who said his brother’s nine -year-old daughter Ulla Tahir was killed on Friday when a U.S. shell crashed into the house, that day [of Us withdrawal] cannot come too soon.

“We don’t want anybody. No Americans, no insurgents. What we need is a government. An army. Police stations,” he said.

“We need a city.”