Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Baker-Hamilton arrives

There is no guarantee for success in Iraq. The situation in Baghdad and several provinces is dire. Saddam Hussein has been removed from power and the Iraqi people have a demo-cratically elected government that is broadly representative of Iraq’s population, yet the government is not adequately ad-vancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or de-livering essential services. The level of violence is high and growing. There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive.

This is the opening paragraph of the report. I’ll be commenting on it as I read through it.

Perhaps the Bush administration will be able to come up with some ideas, from this report and the others to be finished soon, to make the situation in Iraq better or at least not let it get worse. I fear the ability of any outside power to influence what’s going on on the ground may have passed. I hope on this one I’m wrong.

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