“Post-occupation” Iraq gets down to business:
Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq’s ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.
It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting. The attack also made plain the kind of lapses in security that have left Iraqis wary of the U.S. drawdown and distrustful of the ability of Iraqi forces now taking up ultimate responsibility for protecting the country.
Sunday’s hour-long assault was the second in as many weeks on the facility, the headquarters for the Iraqi Army’s 11th Division, pointing to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security.
If “heavily-armed militants” are already attacking a divisional Army HQ, I think it is reasonable conclude that there is a long and nasty period of civil war ahead. The problem with “the Surge” was never that American forces didn’t have the ability to impose a temporary reduction in the internecine violence, but that it was merely a short-term measure that would stop working when the necessary forces were withdrawn.