"Staying the course" a giant failure.(Letter to the editor)

Having just returned from spending two years in Baghdad as an International Police Advisor, I can attest to the fact that the Iraqi security forces are not ready to assume the enormous task of self-sufficiency and protection of the Iraqi people. The majority of Iraqi soldiers and policemen are themselves corrupt to a magnitude that would appall most Americans, and things are not getting any better.

What needs to happen is a total reworking of that country's government from the top down. Our own politicians and military leaders have been making the fatal mistake of trying to rebuild Iraq from the bottom up, spending billions of dollars on training for the average soldier and policeman. In the last two years I have observed (and reported, but to no avail) that no amount of training will help them unless and until the government itself is reformed. The Ministry of Interior needs to be cleaned out, purged of the criminals who are in control of the Iraqi Police Service. The same applies to their defense ministry. Until that is done we are spinning our wheels, vainly attempting to create a strong ...