Iraq - So where are we?

As 2006 ends Saddam is dead and so are 3000 American troops. So where are we? Josh Marshall gives us an idea.

If you watch the video of the moments leading up to Saddam Hussein's execution, am I wrong that it bears a certain resemblance to the terrorist snuff films we've watched out of Iraq over the last three years? A dark, dank room. The executioners wear not uniforms of any sort, either civilian or military, but street clothes and ski masks. We now learn that the executioners were apparently taken from the population of southern Iraq, the country's Shi'a heartland, where Saddam's repression was most severe. And in an apt symbolic statement on what the Iraq War is about, two of the executioners who saw Saddam off started hailing Moktada al Sadr in Saddam's face as they prepared to hang him. Remember, al Sadr's Mahdi Army is the force the 'surge' of new US troops is meant to crush next year. That's where we are.

So were Saddam's executioners from the very militia George W. Bush is going to send more of America's finest to fight? That certainly appears to be a very real possibility. Bush's "new" plan for Iraq is nothing but "stay the course" with more targets. We have reached the point where the US will not leave Iraq or even revisit tactics or strategy as long as the adolescent bully from Crawford occupies the White House. What will 2007 bring in Iraq expect that 4000 dead American soldiers milestone to be reached.