Interesting how this changes every other day:

Sectarian violence in Iraq has become “self-sustaining,” increasing the challenge of stabilizing the country, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Friday.

“Violence between the Sunnis and Shia has become self-sustaining and has spread out to a wider range of … groups and actors,” said John Negroponte, the U.S. national intelligence director.

Negroponte, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said the violence “presents great challenges toward Iraqi Prime Minister (Nuri) al-Maliki in trying to implement reforms geared to improve life for all Iraqis and to reverse the escalating trend of ethno-sectarian violence.

[SNIP]

Negroponte said al-Qaeda continued to work to destabilize the fledgling Iraqi government. 

So – two weeks ago al Qaeda was nothing in Iraq. We had destroyed them to the point they couldn’t even carry out their operations anymore. That is exactly what Gen. Abizaid told Congress. Gen. Caldwell also told reporters at that time that al Qaeda was essentially non-existent and only accounted for 2-3% of the problem in Iraq.

Then we get into last week when Bush decided it was time to blame all the sectarian violence on al Qaeda, making it appear that they had the fastest comeback in history. Now we got Negroponte saying that the violence is self-sustaining and that al-Qaeda is doing some work to destabilize the government.

When the story switches around this much in such a short amount of time it is either a) someone is lying or b) they have no clue what is happening.

If the problem is a, then who lied? Did Gen. Abizaid lie to Congress a couple weeks back and Gen Caldwell lie to reporters? That would amount to lying to the American people also. If that is the case then they should both be fired. Or did Bush lie to the American people and the world last week when he blamed all the problems on al-Qaeda? If that is the case then impeachment should come into play.

If the option is B then it is time to start replacing people from the top down (and I mean the top – commander in chief). This war has gone on longer than World War 2, and that is at the fault of this administration. It has been their piss poor planning that caused all these problems. They didn’t plan for the proper take over of Iraq. They didn’t plan on how to secure the country once Saddam was gone.

What it boils down to is we need a new course, and we need it now. None of this playing politics with American or Iraqi lives. Get out and tell people the fucking truth for once and then maybe you can hear ideas that would help bring closure to this nightmare.