Gravel said the forces loyal to anti-occupation cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had proven to be much stronger than anticipated and blamed a lack of intelligence for the failure.
Astonishingly, Gravel said, there have been cases where professional Arabic and Farsi linguists have been discharged from the military because they were gay, and as a consequence “our intelligence is non-existent.”
Sabrina Schaeffer, a Washington based political analyst said there are possibly two things that could be taken away from the report.
“The first is that we are making a lot of progress both politically and militarily on the ground. And second that a premature withdrawal would be a disaster, and would overturn what they described as a fragile and reversible situation on the ground,” she said.
Sabah Jawad, Secretary of the London-based Iraqi Democrats Against War, dismissed reports of progress.
“While there may have been some changes in the months immediately after the surge in US troop levels, in the past few days we have seen some 17 American soldiers killed since Sunday.”
He said the United States is still in a quagmire in Iraq and is trying to solve its problems by flexing its muscles and urging the al-Maliki government to take stronger action, especially in the south of Iraq.
Senator Gravel also took issue with Schaeffer’s upbeat assessment.
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