Doug R--

"when the Iraqi police and armed forces can defend the nation"

1) What happened to all those grandiose ideas about Iraq being a shining example of democracy in the Mideast? Now it's just survival.

2) Hope you've thanked the UN today--without the UN there would have been no "Iraqi police or armed forces" and no "nation"---the civil war would have started a lot earlier. Bremer was not popular--and no good at all in keeping the various Iraqi factions from each others' throats.