Ok, first, I'm a gonna' slap myself in the head...I meant to say that 14 of 18 provinces are insurgent free for the most part....darn, I hate it when I do that. :-)

As for the strategy thing and keeping in mind that I was only discussing the issue of "public opinion"....I definitely agree we need a new strategy. As I mentioned, the "stay the course" strategy is a failure. If we continue doing the same we can expect the same results. If we want different results, we have to do something different.

As for the 4 of 18 provinces with serious insurgent problems....I don't want to minimize the issue, but not all the provinces require the same "strategy" or the same number of troops.

I do believe the bottom line is this -- unless the people of Iraq feel secure; unless they feel they can support the government today without having to worry about the radicals taking revenge on them tomorrow any strategy will fail. It is about security. The military must have the numbers required to provide a security screen behind which the government can provide social services, insfrastructure development, power, safe shopping, garbage disposal, etc.

Unfortunately this is not easy. The government must provide security 24x7 and you can't do this with raids and short term military actions.