How is Iraq going?

here is a good article I recently came by that paints a pretty vivid picture of what Iraq is like now-a-days.

www.msnbc.com...

notable quotes:

"Specialist Jose (Psycho) Lopez, 21, struggles to know how to handle more- threatening situations. �You see them standing there and they�re doing this...� He makes a slashing motion across his throat. �You see them, but what are you going to do? Kill them? I�ll grab them by the throat and slap them hard.� Maybe not the best way to make friends and cultivate informants."

"THE AMERICANS are learning the universal language of insult. They catch on now when Iraqis in the seething Sunni Triangle flash them a backhanded V sign, which conveys roughly the same message as an extended middle finger back in the States. When Americans wish to demonstrate their contempt to the locals, they point to the soles of their feet"

"What the Americans still don�t know is who, exactly, they�re fighting"

"Foreigners or locals? Which is it? U.S. intelligence officials split the difference and suggested that Baathist dead-enders had hired foreign jihadists (or, possibly, local fanatics) to drive the suicide vehicles"

"President George W. Bush continues to proclaim that the escalating terrorism in Iraq, some 25 to 30 attacks per day, up from 15 to 20 in September, is actually a good sign"

"A month ago an Iraqi citizen approached some U.S. soldiers, offering to sell a shoulder-held SA-7 surface-to-air missile, the kind that can be use to shoot down commercial airliners. When the soldiers offered the man $250, he drove back with a truckload of missiles and collected a payment of $40,000"
An SA-7 has infrared heat sinking capabilities and is believed to be responsible for the attack on the chinook helicopter that killed over a dozen soldiers on their way back home.


"U.S. forces in Iraq have discovered stockpiles of as many as 500 �suicide vests,� bomb-laden garments similar to those used by Palestinian terrorists against Israeli targets. "

"It�s hard to know your enemy when you don�t speak his language. In Iraq, when guerrillas place an IED (improvised explosive device) by the side of the road, they sometimes write a warning on the street�in Arabic. The locals understand to steer clear; the Americans drive right into the trap."

[Edited on 2-11-2003 by TheManWithThePlan]