The reason we can't win in Iraq

Steve Gilliard has the story which demonstrates how America has failed to create a unified Iraq.

In order for America to win we have to have a unified national Iraqi army in place to replace the American soldiers we are having more and more difficulty keeping In Iraq.

But the Sunnis do no like or respect the Shiites, and as the military under Saddam they were the people who attacked and killed the southern Shiites as much as they could. Now the insurgents, presumably the al Qaeda ones under al Zarqawi have been specifically attacking Shiite civilians attempting to start a Sunni - Shiite civil war.

It's working. The Shiites have been joining the Iraqi army to defend themselves and are using their equipment and training against the Sunnis.

The Shiite troops are angered both by the thousands of Shiites who were killed and buried in mass graves during Saddam's Sunni-backed rule and by the huge number of Shiite casualties suffered from fighting Sunni insurgents.

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"Every man we've had killed and wounded is because of that mosque. Thousands and thousands of Shiites are being killed, which is why they're joining the army," Sabri said. "Just let us have our constitution and elections in December and then we will do what Saddam did - start with five people from each neighborhood and kill them in the streets and then go from there."

Asked if he worried about possible fighting between his men and the Sunnis at Umm al Qura, the brigade's command sergeant major, Hassan Kadhum, smiled.

"Your country had to have a civil war," he said. "It will be the same here. Everything in this world has its price. In Iraq the price for peace will be blood."

Kadhum thought the matter over for a few more moments.

"There will be a day when we take that mosque and make it an army headquarters," Kadhum said.

As I say, it is working.

When we leave, which Bush will do mostly before the November 2006 election in America, we will leave behind us a nasty, no-hold-barred Civil War.

Iran will support the Shiite militia which will also be the Iraqi military we have trained, and no one there is going to like the Americans.

It isn't set in stone that this will happen - except for one thing. The Bush administration still has no one with the smarts to keep it from occurring. This administration simply is not sufficiently in touch with reality to deal with anything as complex as Iraq, Iran and the Middle East.