Iraq

January 10th the final election results will be in. In the meantime, after the large amount of killing over the last couple of days, Iraq the Model has some insight.

"All this comes while commanders in the defense ministry are busy refusing the American commanders’ candidate for leading the brigade that is planned to assume security tasks in the heart of Baghdad. The only apparent reason for refusing this candidate-who succeeded in elevating the readiness level of his brigade from class 3 to class 1 according to an American military adviser-the only apparent reason is his Sunni background.
Mohammed al-Askari, spokesman of the defense ministry said they ministry is preparing an emergency security plan to implement incase there’s a sudden withdrawal of American troops."

That 2nd point is sad. President Bush guaranteed they won't be abandoned on his watch. So while we can hope that our troops will be coming home, it isn't going to happen before Iraq is ready, before 2008 unless something beyond imagination happens. I trust him on this one.

Here's the current general feel there:
"I think this is the darkest image we have conveyed from Iraq in more than two years but it is a fact that it hasn’t been this bad in Iraq ever since the 9th of April 2003.
The general sense of the public opinion in Iraq is that our politicians who we trusted proved to be unqualified for the responsibility.
Everyone I meet says he feels betrayed by the politicians who keep frustrating us with their incompetence and internal fighting over power.
Iraqis expressed optimism before the election and you read that on opinion polls and we could feel it here in the streets but I’m sure that if those opinion polls are repeated, we’ll see that a great deal of that optimism is gone now."

Go over to Iraq the Model and leave them a nice comment. Actually - if you have any scoop and that scoop is hopeful, leave me one too!