Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Saturday, April 29, 2006
How's About That War on Terror?
Apparently, not going so well:
The WP fronts the latest annual State Department Country Reports on Terrorism that reveals the number of terrorist attacks increased four times in 2005 to a total of 11,111, which resulted in the death of 14,600 noncombatants. The NYT focuses on what it says about Iraq, where major terrorist attacks, and their casualties, doubled from last year and killed 8,300 people. The report also states that foreign fighters in Iraq account for only four to 10 percent of the total insurgents in the country. An assessment inside the document paints a not-so-positive picture of how the war on terror is going, saying the United States is still in the "first phase of a potentially long war." According to the report, smaller terrorist cells that act autonomously are becoming more active. It goes on to say that even though al-Qaida is not the same organization it used to be, "the enemy's proven ability to adapt means we will probably go through several more cycles of action/reaction before the war's outcome is no longer in doubt.
But surely in Iraq, Americans are turning the fighting over to that quarter of a million trained Iraqi soldiers, right?
The WSJ goes high with, while the NYT and LAT point out, that with the death of a U.S. soldier on Friday, 69 U.S. troops have died in Iraq so far in April, which makes it the highest death toll in five months.

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The WP fronts a good dispatch from Hawijah, Iraq, illustrating the distrust that exists between U.S. and Iraqi forces. Even though the two are supposed to be working as a team, there is evidence to suggest some Iraqi soldiers cooperate with insurgents, leaving U.S. troops unsure of whom exactly they can trust.