WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday that it could take as long as 12 years to defeat the insurgency in Iraq, but he said it will be up to Iraqi forces to do the job.

"We're not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency," Rumsfeld told Fox News Sunday. "That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."

He acknowledged that the insurgents' attacks "are more lethal than they had been previously, they're killing a lot more Iraqis," and he said the insurgency "could become more violent" in advance of a referendum on a new Iraqi constitution and new elections in December.

Rumsfeld's frank assessment, which echoed one the top two U.S. military commanders in Iraq gave to Congress last week, came as President Bush prepares to address the nation about Iraq on Tuesday night. Recent opinion polls have found flagging public support for the war and growing doubt about whether invading Iraq was the right thing to do.

It also came as insurgents in Iraq have escalated their attacks in an apparent effort to aggravate sectarian strife, undermine the interim Iraqi government and its security forces and perhaps demoralize U.S. troops and the American public.

Insurgent attacks have killed more than 1,300 people, the vast majority of them Iraqis, since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari announced the formation of his government. According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, 1,739 American soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

In the last week, at least 15 car bombs have targeted Iraqi policemen, soldiers, Shiite neighborhoods and the American military. An ambush last week on a U.S. convoy carrying female troops killed two Marines, both men, and wounded 13, 11 of them women.

On Sunday, at least two bombs ripped through an Iraqi police and military post in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 21 people and wounding at least 29.

At about 6:25 a.m. local time on Sunday morning, a car bomb hidden under a load of watermelons ripped through Al Hadba, a police headquarters building in Mosul. The explosion killed at least six people, four of them policemen.

About two and a half hours later, soldiers stopped a suicide car bomber from entering the Al Kisk military camp in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, which has been a center of the insurgency. He detonated his bomb outside the camp in a crowd of civilians, killing at least 15 and wounding 15, according to an interior ministry official and the Iraq Ministry of Defense.

In Baghdad, police colonel Riyadh Abdel Karim was assassinated Sunday morning as he drove to his downtown office, and one U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded by an improvised explosive device on the side of the road.

Most of the attacks have come in Anbar province, where an offensive by 1,000 U.S. Marines and sailors was completed last week and another continues in a campaign to weed out insurgents and locate weapons caches.

But as U.S. and Iraqi forces have attacked in one area, insurgents have struck elsewhere, later and returning to their old strongholds after the Americans leave.

The Iraqi police and soldiers on whom Rumsfeld said victory depends patrol the streets fearfully with their guns pointed and their faces covered to protect their identities. Their offices, checkpoints and even the places where they eat lunch are all targets for insurgent attacks.

Rumsfeld on Sunday said that Iraqi forces are gaining public support and that the insurgents will lose because they have no vision and no charismatic leader like China's Mao Zedong or Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh.

"They are foreigners trying to impose their will against an elected government in Iraq and they are going to lose it," Rumsfeld said.

Responding to a report in The Sunday Times of London, Rumsfeld said the United States is supporting the Iraqi government's efforts to reach out to the country's disaffected Sunni Muslim minority in an attempt to encourage greater Sunni Arab participation in politics and to diminish support for the insurgency.

"The first thing you want to do is split people off and get some people to be supportive," Rumsfeld said. He added that, "this doesn't mean we are talking with people like (terrorist leader Abu Musab al) Zarqawi." Zarqawi is a Jordanian, not an Iraqi.

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi said in a Sunday press conference in Najaf with radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that he didn't know whether the meetings between U.S. military officers and officials and insurgents would "limit the terrorist operations."

"I think that destroying terrorism depends on the Iraqi efforts from both the Sunni and Shiite," he said.

After meeting with Mehdi, however, al-Sadr, who opposes the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, said the Iraqi government must set a timetable for an American troop withdrawal.

that's bad news.... wish there was a way we could speed up the time it will take to take down this insurgency.

And as far as "mission accomplished" goes.....

If i remember correctly... we did execute a swift and effective strike on iraq, taking down Saddam's regime.

That was the mission.... no?

If that was the mission then why are we still there? you have a distinct problem with reality. Besides I thought the mission was to disarm Saddam from all those nasty WMD's...

All the anti-war activists pointed out that Iar would become a new Vietnam. That we would be bogged down for endless years. That Saddam didn't have any WMD.

Maybe if Bush was serious about peace, and not outsing Saddam for PR and corporate subservience, we wouldn't be in this mess. Saddam said he would allow full inspections and have elections in 2 years. Nope, Shrub wanted war. Republicans (and quite a few democrats) wanted war. Thats what they got and now their not happy with the results.

Did it ever even occur to you that the US's presence is what is specifically fueling the resistance? Because thats exactly what is. If we pull out there will most likely be a power struggle. Anti-war activists pointed this out to, before the war.

Funny how everything BushCo has said about war has been completely wrong and everything anti-war activists have been saying turned out completely right. But hey don't bother taking my advice. You just keep following those who took you here in the first place...

IIRC we were to disarm and subdue Saddam, hand over the keys and do an adios. Rumsfeld said paraphrasingly, "it certainly won't take a year".

Now, we already know this admin is nothing but professional liars so it shouldn't surprise anyone when they talk out of both sides of their mouths ...

we've turned the corner, we have them on the ropes, they're in their last throes ......

then have rummy say we need another 12 years and many more casualties to clean up the place.

The truth of the matter is Chimpy McCokespoon and Rectal Rove's excellent Iraq adventure is completely FUBAR and the only mission they ever had was to steal Iraq's oil and kill the people.

please give us a list of all the ways this is like vietnam. it seems the only way that this is really like vietnam is the parade of journalists and activists who insist on making it like vietnam. there is no ho chi minh, no ho chi minh trail, no jungle, no NVA, no china. There is a vietcong. The iraqi government is nothing like the S. Vietnamese government, the Iraqi forces seem a lot more dedicated then the ARVN. really, I am curious to as to your comparisons. It is often made but never backed up. Its as if simply applying the label "vietnam" is argument enough for you. the truth is, you want it to be a vietnam, becasue then you think you can make a difference by bringing us home in disgrace, again.

It's the same as Vietnam in one special way ... everything, day in and day out is one big FUBAR after another.

That's what we get for circumventing the Generals and Admirals and letting civilians who never served a day in uniform, run the show and send our troops to their deaths.

great analysis :rolleyes:

now, could we get some specifics please?

Specifics?

Sure thing:

Gulf of Tonkin resolution Lie
15 years of bullshit
57,000 dead american troops
A wall in Washington D.C.
TET
Illegally in Cambodia and Laos
Calley at My Lai
Powell covering up My Lai
Hundreds of thousand (milions?) dead in Vietnam
Hospitals ordering prosthetic limbs by the train load
Troops returning and going psycho
Agent Orange
Napalm
Pulling out of Vietnam totally embarrassed and with no honor
Richard Nixon
Protests, riots, sit-ins, sit-outs throughout america
kent State

Each of these are already or will be repeated -- give it time.

Iraq is no indochina. It is a completely different dynamic.

But - the one similarity seems to be the logic on pulling out. In Vietnam the thought was the US could not pull out or it would be a total mess. Same logic in Iraq at the moment.

With vietnam - in the end the US pulled out - 3 million dead later & in the end the situation was no different than it was earlier.

Iraq may be different - I do not believe that pulling out is the right thing to do - but 12 years is also unacceptable. We should either pull out or escalate it significantly with 100,000 more troops (which would mean a draft) - also unacceptable.

What will happen is a long war of attrition with no viable option except the slow death of US servicemen.

Originally posted by Lungdop Philing
Specifics?

Sure thing:

Gulf of Tonkin resolution Lie
15 years of bullshit
57,000 dead american troops
A wall in Washington D.C.
TET
Illegally in Cambodia and Laos
Calley at My Lai
Powell covering up My Lai
Hundreds of thousand (milions?) dead in Vietnam
Hospitals ordering prosthetic limbs by the train load
Troops returning and going psycho
Agent Orange
Napalm
Pulling out of Vietnam totally embarrassed and with no honor
Richard Nixon
Protests, riots, sit-ins, sit-outs throughout america
kent State

Each of these are already or will be repeated -- give it time.

pathetic. how about some actual similiritys dop, militarily, not politically or propaganda wise. how is vietnam like iraq? Richard Nixon? WTF?

The only real issue with pulling out is the US would look like a failure, but time would mend that fence.

Beyond that - if we pulled out, there would be a civil war, Iraq would probably become a muslim state, but really that is their choice. We cannot say that muslim states are not allowed.

Originally posted by DrewM
Iraq is no indochina. It is a completely different dynamic.

But - the one similarity seems to be the logic on pulling out. In Vietnam the thought was the US could not pull out or it would be a total mess. Same logic in Iraq at the moment.

With vietnam - in the end the US pulled out - 3 million dead later & in the end the situation was no different than it was earlier.

Iraq may be different - I do not believe that pulling out is the right thing to do - but 12 years is also unacceptable. We should either pull out or escalate it significantly with 100,000 more troops (which would mean a draft) - also unacceptable.

What will happen is a long war of attrition with no viable option except the slow death of US servicemen.

the big difference is the insurgency has no major backer or support, as the vietcong did with China and the USSR.

its main fuel is the western media. you cant win a war with car bombs unless you have a sympathetic media piping it into the homes of your sympathetic opponents. car bombs and IED's cant win wars alone. the loss of will and popular support are the only things that can drive us from Iraq. militarily, the insurgency is impotent. they have to win it on the news, which they are doing.

They have no leader. the Vietnamese had Ho Chi Minh. A revered hero of the Vietnamese people. The only name you hear associated with the insurgency is Zarqawi. he isn't even Iraqi. he is Jordanian Al queada.


I say again, the only way this is anything like Vietnam is the actions of our media and anti war activists. if it isn't Vietnam they will make sure it comes off as so, and to the uniformed it will work. anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on history knows this is no Vietnam.

Actually - some very good points there Trav.

Originally posted by Travh20
I say again, the only way this is anything like Vietnam is the actions of our media and anti war activists. if it isn't Vietnam they will make sure it comes off as so, and to the uniformed it will work. anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on history knows this is no Vietnam.

I have at least a rudimentary grasp on history Trav, and I see some similarities between the two.

In both cases we are fighting against an opponent who lacks a strong military, and is indistiguishable from the civilian population, so the enemy makes use of guerrilla tactics.

In both cases, the natives of the region hold a strong distrust of the US, which makes it difficult at best, and impossible at worst, to win against such an enemy.

If the war in Iraq is so different from the war in Vietnam, why has our military superiority not won the day?

Trav, how would you go about "winning" the war in Iraq?

thats true pagan, but there have been indiginous non uniformed combatants in every war. Dont forget that in vietnamw e also fought the NVA, who were a uniformed force.

it is true the Iraqis do not trust us, that is why our main goal is to get the iraqi government up and running. to win the war we need to get them self sufficient in all aspects. the terrorists know this and make destabalizing the Iraqi governemnt their top priority. you cant make an effective fighting force in 6 months. It will take a long time for their army to get up to speed. in the mean time the insurgents, who follow no rules, will have an easy time of it. just like the robberrs are always one step ahead of the cops. those who have no rules will always seem ahead of the game.

We had a lot of dead for no reason in Vietnam.
We have a lot of dead for no reason in Iraq.

Just how are they different?

Originally posted by Travh20
pathetic. how about some actual similiritys dop, militarily, not politically or propaganda wise. how is vietnam like iraq? Richard Nixon? WTF? although i dont know much about the way most of our wars were fought, i think not being able to tell the insurgents from the regular folk, is a good similarity. we fight "fair", they didnt, and the insurgents dont ! and although "fair" may not be a good way to describe it, you know what i mean.

Originally posted by DrewM
Iraq is no indochina. It is a completely different dynamic.

No, it isn't.

But there ARE distinct similarities in the two "wars".
Imbeciles who make statments like--- "Well, there ain't even any Vietnamese people IN Iraq!! --are just grasping at fucking straws to avoid admitting what the conflicts have in common.

Namely;

----neither of them is a declared "war". Similar to Vietnam, Iraq is being prosecuted soley thru goddamned Executive fiat without Congress having found the guts to proclaim it a *war*.

---both were totally unnecessary to protecting the safety and security of the American homeland.

----both were initiated [and sold to the gullible masses] by using a false flag operations [in the case of Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin attack that was staged by LBJ, and in the case of Iraq the 9/11 attacks which Bush and his cronies conspired to allow to take place unimpeded]

---both are hopeless clusterfucks where servicemen are giving up their lives for NO good reason

----both, (even though the tide of public support for Vietnam ultimately faded out, just as will eventually happen in Iraq after the requisite number soldiers sacrifice their lives) are being staunchly defended and supported by the macho rightwing warmongers among us, who care nothing about the human rights of the people in other "evil doer" nations

---both are absolute QUAGMIRES from which America did not [and will not] extract itself until many thousands of servicemen die, until several billion dollars have been burned up for nothing, and until the massive "Defense" companies and the petro-chemical Corporations there have reaped countless billions in profits.......billions that are being lifted directly from the US taxpayer's pockets.

One VAST difference in the two conflicts was that back during Vietnam, the America Press still retained a tiny bit of journalistic integrity and duty to inform the masses, and did not allow the Corporations to order them (as has happened now in Iraq) to NOT show the death and destruction on the nightly news.

Originally posted by Travh20
the big difference is the insurgency has no major backer or support, as the vietcong did with China and the USSR.

its main fuel is the western media. you cant win a war with car bombs unless you have a sympathetic media piping it into the homes of your sympathetic opponents. car bombs and IED's cant win wars alone. the loss of will and popular support are the only things that can drive us from Iraq. militarily, the insurgency is impotent. they have to win it on the news, which they are doing.

They have no leader. the Vietnamese had Ho Chi Minh. A revered hero of the Vietnamese people. The only name you hear associated with the insurgency is Zarqawi. he isn't even Iraqi. he is Jordanian Al queada.


I say again, the only way this is anything like Vietnam is the actions of our media and anti war activists. if it isn't Vietnam they will make sure it comes off as so, and to the uniformed it will work. anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on history knows this is no Vietnam.
Excellent post, Trav.

In vietnam - the opposing side was a state, with an army. They may have used many of the same tactics, but many of the tactics were quite different. They also were much greater in number and they had the backing of the soviet union. They had a part of the country & the US had a different part of the country. The US was also in place to prevent their spread through to the south.

In Iraq the insurgents are much smaller in number, there is no country divided by geography. These insurgents are mostly from outside of Iraq flooding in to fight a 'holy war'. They do not enjoy a broad base of support within the country.

There certainly are similarities, but overall the dynamic is very different.

The men in the black pajamas (read - real soldiers) can't be compared to the untrained morons looking to find reverse in a poorly maintained soviet tank. Their organization is poor, their leadership is nonexistent, and their weapons are hardly that effective. Case closed - it's NOTHING like Vietnam. Trav is right in every aspect – this war will be lost at home, not there.

Originally posted by DrewM

In Iraq the insurgents are much smaller in number, there is no country divided by geography. These insurgents are mostly from outside of Iraq flooding in to fight a 'holy war'. They do not enjoy a broad base of support within the country.

yet, they are giving us fits . so few in number, but its like an itch you cant reach. driving us crazy !

I agree with that.

The only possible way to defeat an insurgency is to be brutally oppressive. Saddam was pretty good at that - the people got out of line people were strung up in the street or gassed in their thousands. The price of such an insurgency was too high a price.

We on the other cannot do anything like that - so there really is absolutely zero chance of success against this type of thing. Any success will come from the Iraqi's themselves.

But according to Dick Cheney they are on their last legs. They are no more on their last legs than he is on his last crack pipe.

Originally posted by Travh20
Richard Nixon? WTF?

Power-hungry, greedy, sycophant running the counry then ... ditto now.

Isn't that a description of every president?

Bush is nothing like Nixon.

Nixon had many successes.

Originally posted by Travh20
thats true pagan, but there have been indiginous non uniformed combatants in every war. Dont forget that in vietnamw e also fought the NVA, who were a uniformed force.

Two good points, but we didn't lose to the NVA.


it is true the Iraqis do not trust us, that is why our main goal is to get the iraqi government up and running. to win the war we need to get them self sufficient in all aspects.

Good goals, but at what point do we decide they're self-sufficient? What criteria do we use to determine their readiness for self-government?


the terrorists know this and make destabalizing the Iraqi governemnt their top priority.

Isn't it ironic that the destabilization caused by the insurgents is the very reason for our continued presence.


you cant make an effective fighting force in 6 months.

We've had 2+ years. Another year and it will equal the time the US was involved in WWII.


It will take a long time for their army to get up to speed.

How long is that in years?


in the mean time the insurgents, who follow no rules, will have an easy time of it. just like the robberrs are always one step ahead of the cops. those who have no rules will always seem ahead of the game.

Perhaps then we should leave these guys to the cops to deal with.

Originally posted by DrewM
Isn't that a description of every president?

Bush is nothing like Nixon.

Nixon had many successes.

Nixon had a few successes ... his China dealings, he brought home the pow's as promised and he gave the 18 year-old the right to vote.

Beyond those few presidential acts, he was no more than a west coast power hungry control-freak who felt he didn't fit in on the east coast, intensely hated anything Kennedy and would go to any end to secure absolute power and control. Sound like someone we know?

He used every dirty trick in the book which at times make Karl Rove's maneuvers look like pratical jokes.

He attempted to wire tap the NYT, the LAT and other major media outlets. He laundred money in several ways, the least of which was the secret funds in Mexico and the $30 million San Clemente funds. He also extroted money from the lobbyists for the U.S. dairy farmers and filtered it to his campaign.

Nixon hated anyone that didn't adhere to the strict lifestyle of the Quakers, with particular dislike and distrust for jews.

He used the FBI and the CIA to gain information on his real and imagined enemies and the IRS was, in his eyes just another police force used for bring problems to those that crossed him.

His best friend was Bebe Rebozo -- a man investigated by congress for laundering money straight from Howard Hughes' wallet to Nixon's campaign fund. Hughes also lied when he claimed he was with Nixon when they first heard about the watergate breakin. That false cover was later shown to be untrue.

When he felt he was crossed by Fielding, he had his operatives break into that man's psychiatrists office, Dr. Ellsberg, to dig up dirt to destroy him.

He had his plumbers operating within the white house grounds (think it was the executive building).

In short, he threatened everyone that stood in his way, which in the long run cost him his presidency and forced him to resign as a dishonored man.

Nixon was intelligent, there's little doubt about that, as was he sensitive and kind to some people. Those would be the only attributes that seperate him and the current president from being 2 peas in a pod.

so basically this war is exactly like vietnam beause bush is like nixon. I'm convinced.

My post is a response to DrewM who takes the position Nixon and Bush are nothing alike. Why? Does that upset you?

Comparing Bush to Nixon seems a bit pointless. They are not much alike & even if they were - so what? I fail to see how comparing them is even remotely relevant to anything.

Originally posted by Lungdop Philing
My post is a response to DrewM who takes the position Nixon and Bush are nothing alike. Why? Does that upset you?

ya dop, all the bush/ hitler comparisons were cool, but comparing him to nixon is over the line man!

The whole concept of comparing Bush to past leaders is pathetic.

If a point is to be made make it via real reference to Bush.

Originally posted by Travh20
ya dop, all the bush/ hitler comparisons were cool, but comparing him to nixon is over the line man! rotflmao

Originally posted by Vilepagan
... at what point do we decide they're self-sufficient? What criteria do we use to determine their readiness for self-government?

That is one of the major problems with this so called war. We went in under the false pretenses of overthrowing Sadamn and clearing out his WMD. There were none, so the pretense was changed to "freeing the Iraqi people". But we have no set qualifiers for deternmining their freedom. AT first we were told when a government was elected, then it was when a constituition was drawn up, now it is when their police force gets trained.

We need to set a specific goal with qualifiers and leave when we reach it. This continuous changeing of goals, with no qualifiers for leaving, in order to continue occupying Iraq is as transparant as glass.

The management of this mess has been terrible from the start. We went in unprepared, with continuesly changeing goals, no qualifiers and very little planning. Not enough troops, amunition, vests, armour, water, etc.

In the business world, a CEO would get his ass fired for these kinds of mistakes. Guess that's why the shrub failed at every business venture he tried.

echo, we didnt decide to put in a government only becasue we didnt fnd any WMD's.

and why are you saying again that we didnt have enough ammunition? thats like the fifth time you have said that. you know a man can only carry so much ammunition, that stuff gets heavy fast. its like you heard a story about one guy running out of ammo in a firefight and concluded we didnt birng enough ammo.

Originally posted by Travh20
ya dop, all the bush/ hitler comparisons were cool, but comparing him to nixon is over the line man!

WTF does this statement mean? How about explaining to us just why comparing these 2 presidents is over the line. Start with over the top of what?????????

chill dop, it was a joke

Originally posted by Travh20
chill dop, it was a joke
Hell, I thought that was pretty obvious...

Korg even got it.

In Iraq the insurgents are much smaller in number, there is no country divided by geography. These insurgents are mostly from outside of Iraq flooding in to fight a 'holy war'. They do not enjoy a broad base of support within the country. Liar. The CPA themselves have repeatedly said that the Iraqi freedom fighters are about 5% foreign. That may have gone up a little in the past months but a majority of them are still Iraqis with support from their fellow Iraqis.

If you actually believe that Al-zaqarwi is in Iraq with a $10 million + bounty on his head then how come no one has turned him in yet?

Originally posted by The Praetorian
Hell, I thought that was pretty obvious...

Korg even got it. lmao......now what the hell does that mean ? even though it cracked me up, there may be an insult in there somewhere , if i know you praetorian.

Originally posted by korg
lmao......now what the hell does that mean ? even though it cracked me up, there may be an insult in there somewhere , if i know you praetorian.
Just busting your chops...:)

I knew that would get a response!

Originally posted by The Praetorian
Just busting your chops...:)

I knew that would get a response! it did, i couldnt stop laughing...you ball-buster.:D