My Inner European...

Max Boot goes to Iraq. He has been an ardent supporter of the war and tepidly supportive of the president. His findings, I think, reflect the difficulty with broad generalizations about the current state of Iraq. It's not as simple as "we're winning" or "quagmire". We're winning in some places and losing in others. It runs the gamut. Dana would have you believe that since Baghdad had more/more consistant power before the invasion, things are, therefore, worse. This is patent strawman and he knows it. He's not a dumb guy but he is a partisan. The production and distribution of power has many drivers. It's important to remember there was a war that, while brief and focused in scope, broke things. So, we had to fix the power supply before doing anything. Secondly, the grid is old and was poorly maintained. Many areas outside Baghdad didn't have power on anything approaching a regular basis. Now they do. That changes things dramatically. Al Qaeda has been attacking power substations periodically which also degrades consistancy. Consumption is also much higher than pre-invasion levels. Throw all these factors in the mix and the picture changes dramatically. Sorry for the tangent, but it speaks to my larger point that things aren't as cut an dried as either camp would have you believe.