Insurgents Regrouping Outside Baghdad

Insurgents are regrouping outside of Baghdad due to the "surge".

Tuesday's four suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously, killing more people than any other concerted attack since Nov. 23, when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City.

Some 300 people were wounded in the attacks on the Yazidis, an ancient religious community, said Dakhil Qassim, the mayor of the nearby town of Sinjar.

The carnage dealt a serious blow to U.S. efforts to pacify the country with just weeks before top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are to deliver a pivotal report to Congress amid a fierce debate over whether to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

U.S. officials believe extremists are attempting to regroup across northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad, and commanders have warned they expected Sunni insurgents to step up attacks in a bid to upstage the report.

Is anyone surprised at this development other than the Bush administration? The "surge" does nothing to protect any other area than Baghdad. According to the counter insurgency manual written by General Petraeus you would need one soldier for every 40 residents. With a population of 22 million it would require a force of 550,000 in order to stabilize the country. The "surge" can not be successful with the current troop levels and General Petraeus understands this. The issue becomes how to get out without leaving a genocide in its place. I am not sure that is possible now.

The most tragic consequences of the Iraq War are yet to be felt. In the end more people will die as a result of this war than died at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Now that is what I call progress.