Unhealthy Surge

Nominating myself for 'understatement of the year' with that one...Patrick Colburn of The Independent gives us a special report on the "results" after six months of surging.

The war in Iraq passed a significant but little remarked anniversary this summer. The conflict that President George Bush announced was in effect over on 1 May 2003 has now gone on longer than the First World War.
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Like that great conflict almost a century ago, the Iraqi war has been marked by repeated claims that progress is being made and that a final breakthrough is in the offing.The surge is now joining a host of discredited formulae for success and fake turning-points that the US (with the UK tripping along behind) has promoted in Iraq over the past 52 months.
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Six months after the surge was actually launched, in mid- February, it has failed as dismally as so many First World War offensives. The US Defense Department says that, this June, the average number of attacks on US and Iraqi forces, civilian forces and infrastructure peaked at 177.8 per day, higher than in any month since the end of May 2003.

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