Charles Skelton: “thank you. I am very concerned about Iraq. Very concerned. The weather vane of the Iraqi fight has shifted clearly to…”

“thank you. I am very concerned about Iraq. Very concerned. The weather vane of the Iraqi fight has shifted clearly to the Iraqis. It is theirs to win or lose. General John Abizaid stated yesterday, ``It's very, very clear that in order to win in Iraq, the Iraqis have to assume more and more responsibility.'' Last week, there were two developments in Iraq that I feel need to be highlighted. First, the Marine Corps' chief of intelligence in Iraq has reportedly described the situation in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province as ``politically'' lost to al Qaeda. The second is the plan to secure Baghdad from the insurgents by encircling it with, for lack of a better word, a moat. The idea of a moat went out of style in the middle ages. Both of these reports paint a less than rosy picture of how we are faring in this war that has already cost so much in blood and treasure. These two developments indicate that our level of effort is insufficient to maintain control of the country. On the basis of these and other reports, some analysts determined that the solution to our problems in Baghdad and the Anbar province is to send more troops to Iraq. This might sound like a plausible course of action except for the fundamental problem that there are no more units to send to Iraq. Oh, certainly we can surge units forward into combat, but there is no way we can sustain that increase for any significant period of time.…”