The Generals and Iraq

Many are close to insubordination at this point. Check out this devastating LA Times piece on Diyala province. Money quote from former Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, now with the Council on Foreign Relations:

"I suspect the new Defense secretary has told general officers to speak their minds. It's going to be hard for some in the administration suddenly they're going to feel it from the inside. I think you're going to see more of it."

This is what he's talking about:

[Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. "Randy"] Mixon, speaking Friday by teleconference from Camp Speicher, outside Tikrit, to a Pentagon news conference, said that he did not have enough soldiers to provide security in Diyala. The local government is "nonfunctional" and the central government is "ineffective," he said. "I'm going to need additional forces," he said, "to get that situation to a more acceptable level, so the Iraqi security forces will be able in the future to handle that." ... Mixon was withering in his criticism of the Iraqi government, saying it was hamstrung by bureaucracy and compromised by corruption and sectarian discord, making it unable to assist U.S. forces in Diyala.

Meanwhile, the one touted success of the surge is now evaporating. Sectarian murders in Baghdad are back up:

Iraq's Interior Ministry said 234 people men whose bodies were found throughout the capital died at the hands of death squads in the first 11 days of May, compared with 137 in the same period of April. The tally so far for May is more than half the total for all of April, when 440 bodies were found. That was a decline from previous months.

See you in September.