Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Baghdad rocket attack targets US hawk: "Paul Bremer, the US administrator of Iraq, in Washington for consultations, made an unusual admission during an interview with ABC Television. He said: 'I think we have to recognise that, as time goes on, being occupied becomes a problem.'
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said: 'We are in this insurgency situation where people strike and run and it's a much more difficult security environment. We did not expect this would be quite this intense for so long.' "

What we have here are admissions of tragic errors. Our government imagined that it could go into Iraq, and do what it liked, while being feted by subservient Iraqi's as saviors. This was flying in the face of the warnings coming from it's own State Department, which predicted the results of the occupation pretty accurately. (Makes you wonder what Colin Powell reads, since he is now saying he didn't expect this kind of resistance.) And the CIA were warning that Saddam was only a threat to us if we attacked.

Bush claims that the attackers are getting desperate. But the reality is that the occupation is facing a steadily increasing volume of attacks. Up from 10-20 / day to 35 recently. And now there have been co-ordinated bombings in Gaghdad killing 40. And they have targeted Paul Wolfowitz. They are far from desperate. They are planning and co-ordinating attacks that are having a worldwide effect.

Bush should not keep on as he is going. That is madness. He has to face the reality that he has profoundly misjudged the situation. And we have to get him out of office as soon as possible.
- posted by geoff @ #