My thanks for the posting of MacCaffrey's assesment. Definitely a more gloomy situation than I realised. To counterbalance this gloom, Rumsfeld is gone, Maliki has awakened, and Al Queda types and their tactics are still their own worst enemies.
It's bothering that the current tactics now being instituted with the posting of small US units in outposts is a technique instituted by the Marine Corps in Vietnam way back when. The concept did run into headwinds from Westmoreland with his too long reliance on large unit operations and the consequent need for bodies but it seems to have been a success. If the We-Know-How-To-Run-A War-Better-Than-You crowd in Washington would leave things alone, I would be optimistic for the future.
Unfortunately...........

Roger Smith