"Finally, it is crucial to form militias in order to raise the staff necessary to maintain a permanent government presence in dangerous areas. This is the only way "clear and hold" has any hope of working...."

Good article. Points out some of the blaring gaps we have had in our game plan that have been discussed in several of the threads.

In regards to the use of militias, haven't we replaced that strategy in Iraqi by finally placing Iraqi units to hold areas we've cleared? I know we haven't got enough of them trained to hold every place, but isn't that the path we're on instead of militias?
Seems to me that there are enough divisions within Iraq and a tendency to want to stay with them (religious, secular, tribal, etc) that militias might just make a road block that would need cleared later......