Well, we are in trouble because of the nature of our media. In many ways we have to treat our own media as if it were part of the enemy. The adversarial and sensationalistic role of the modern media makes it impossible to act without considering the impact media reporting will have on the greater conflict.

In the information age the media is critical to achieving victory, and sadly we don't have a media that is on our side.

You're are of course right that a platoon backed with modern fire support can't be beaten by insurgents, but if we would spread hundreds of platoon-size element throughout Iraq to work in local districs it would be impossible to provide proper fire support to them all.

Incidentally, we do have a model that would work in Iraq that we're currently practicing in Afghanistan: the Provincial Reconstruction Team, or PRT. These teams are made up of several hundred soldiers, including infantry, engineers, Civil Affairs, PSYOP, SF, and intel, as well as IGOs and NGOs. We need to establish similar structures in Iraq, but the problem is that we are suffering a severe shortage in those specialized fields, which would only allow a very limited number of PRTs.

Given our constraints our current deployment, as imperfect as it might be, is probably the only feasable approach.