Dick Gephardt says that everything is screwed up in Iraq because President Bush didn't take his sage advice.

Bush relied too heavily on Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and not enough on moderate voices like Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Gephardt said, adding that Bush also refused to listen to critics outside of the White House, including Gephardt.

"I told the president four times in the White House that we needed help," the US representative from Missouri said. "This is going to be difficult. He literally did not answer my questions.

"It's five months after he landed on that aircraft carrier in his flight suit and we still don't have the help that we need," Gephardt said.

What's missing of course, is any explanation of how having international troops, or even more American troops, would improve the situation, other than increasing the number of targets.

Look at New York City - crime in the ninties collapsed when Rudy greatly increased the number of cops on the beat. Given what we have in Iraq is tactically a patrol situation, increasing density would go a long way to shutting down the insurgency's logistics.

Look at the Kay report - most of the arms dumps haven't even been secured yet - primarily due to manpower issues. Where were the ground spotters for Sunday's Chinook?

And what of the Chocolate Makers - well, the United States has no experience with federal level policing - they do. Better the police fédérale than the Mukhabarat (as is current policy)

Here is an even better analysis...

And that is before the U.S. force structure implodes in March (as predicted by the CBO).

Bottom line: no force in the world has the capability in counterinsurgency possessed by the U.S. Army and Marines. The last thing we need is Russian or Chinese troops. Or how about those French troops that did such a great job at Srebrenica? No, in truth, we don't want any of them anywhere near Iraq.

And even if we did, they won't agree to go. So let's just stop talking about this. Any of the Democratic candidates who talk about their "plan" to beg France and Germany to help are just delusional.

Joshua,
...which leads me to ask - where the hell are you going to find 100K troops in the next six months?

Iraq? Reconsituing that same effective fighting force that wilted six months ago?

Turkey? Worse idea of the war - even the Turks agree.

Cruch time is going to be very soon...