Things aren't looking up

Two things were supposed to help speed our troops withdrawal from Iraq. One was the money that would come from the oil fields that would help speed rebuilding and win the people to our side. The other was the training of Iraqis to take over security in the country. So how are we doing?

First, the oil:

Between August and October, Iraq lost $7 billion dollars in potential revenues due to sabotage against the country's oil infrastructure, according to Assem Jihad, spokesman of the Oil Ministry.

An estimated 20 oil wells and pipelines were bombed or set ablaze this month in northern Iraq alone, according to an official of the Northern Company. Iraq has oilfields in the north around Kirkuk and in the south near Basra.

Iraq's security crisis and its long, porous land borders left the country's petroleum industry with no effective protection against saboteurs - either Saddam loyalists or tribesmen competing for jobs with the British security firm Erinys International, which has a contract to secure oil wells and pipelines.

Did that say "security crisis?" What about all the troops we had trained, the ones Bush bragged about during the debates? How are the Iraqi security forces doing?

Iraqi police and national guard forces, whose performance is crucial to securing January elections, are foundering in the face of coordinated efforts to kill and intimidate them and their families, say American officials in the provinces facing the most violent insurgency.

For months, Iraqi recruits for both forces have been the victims of assassinations and car bombs aimed at lines of applicants as well as police stations. On Monday morning, a suicide bomber rammed a car into a group of police officers waiting to collect their salaries west of Ramadi, killing 12 people, Interior Ministry officials said.

While Bush administration officials say that the training is progressing and that there have been instances in which the Iraqis have proved tactically useful and fought bravely, local American commanders and security officials say both Iraqi forces are riddled with problems.

In the most violent provinces, they say, the Iraqis are so intimidated that many are reluctant to show up and do not tell their families where they work; they have yet to receive adequate training or weapons, present a danger to American troops they fight alongside, and are unreliable because of corruption, desertion or infiltration.

Given the weak performance of Iraqi forces, any major withdrawal of American troops for at least a decade would invite chaos, a senior Interior Ministry official, whose name could not be used, said in an interview last week.

So in spite of best hope that the Iraqi elections will bring a sudden halt to the violence, we are looking at another ten years with forces in Iraq.

At least we aren't bogged down or anything.