dianavan - do come along lass - at least be consistant - you on another thread:

"There was no faulty intelligence, it was faulty administration."

MGOH,

I think we established sometime in the past the extent of your knowledge of military training particularly with regard to UK forces. It is woefully off the mark, as was brucie's over-simplified contention that you addressed, "Soldiers make war; at least, that is their training."

Interesting to note some similar circumstances in different areas of Iraq.

Down south quite recently some followers of the current mad mullah stormed the local Iraqi governors offices. UK forces surrounded the place, negotiations started with Brit, IGC and Mehdi involvement. Result Mehdi guys left - nobody killed, nobody wounded, order restored. The vast majority of Shia do not support, or trust Muqtada al-Sadr. Who now appears to realise that calling out his militia to "vanquish the infidel", is only going to result in one hell of a lot of them getting killed, himself included, which was never his plan, not by a long shot - Saddam was good at talking that talk too, as was our old Palestinian "robber-in-charge", Yasser Arafat. But like I said that is not in their plan, Sadr, saw the strength of support for him, or lack of it, so now he is calling his boys off, and forming a properly constituted political party to fight in the forthcoming elections - at least according to the BBC - the above having been negotiated between Sadr and representatives from the IGC. Shiite insurrection, popular uprising, like hell - opportunistic grab for power more like.

The other one was the taking of Basra right at the start. Compare the different approach, between that and what is currently going on in Fallujah. Hell all they had to do was cut the place off from the outside world then just sit back and wait.

Deployment of Iraqi, or as Little Hawk insists - Iraqui, Defense Forces should be restricted to border patrols and training, until after the interim ruling council take over and sovereignty is returned to the Iraqi Authorities. I would imagine the bulk of them as Shia's so deploy them in the South in Shia areas, that in turn releases coalition troops to take on the harder areas in greater numbers.

As for the, "Quagmire", "Bush's Vietnam", "impossible to win" - don't you believe it - it's just going to take a bit of time - that was not only plainly obvious to a casual observer - it was what was stated right from the start. The example I have given in the past was Germany five years, Malaya seventeen years. The interim Iraqi civil administration that will be created come June 30th is important, you can't provide aid to civil power, without some form of civil power being in place - the CPA doesn't count.