Blueprint for a Mess - reporting at length by David Rieff in NYT Magazine

[TacticalPeek]

Blueprint for a Mess
By DAVID RIEFF

Published: November 2, 2003

On the streets of Baghdad today, Americans do not feel welcome. United States military personnel in the city are hunkered down behind acres of fencing and razor wire inside what was once Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. When L. Paul Bremer III, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, leaves the compound, he is always surrounded by bodyguards, carbines at the ready, and G.I.'s on patrol in the city's streets never let their hands stray far from the triggers of their machine guns or M-16 rifles. The official line from the White House and the Pentagon is that things in Baghdad and throughout Iraq are improving. But an average of 35 attacks are mounted each day on American forces inside Iraq by armed resisters of one kind or another, whom American commanders concede are operating with greater and greater sophistication. In the back streets of Sadr City, the impoverished Baghdad suburb where almost two million Shiites live -- and where Bush administration officials and Iraqi exiles once imagined American troops would be welcomed with sweets and flowers -- the mood, when I visited in September, was angry and resentful. In October, the 24-member American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council warned of a deteriorating security situation.

muchmuchmuch more at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/magazine/02IRAQ.html

Very long article I haven't finished yet, but its good and there's a lot.

[spotbird]

1. Thanks, I'll check it out.

Sounds like it reports what we all know here.