>>Are you asking if we are going to maintain a permanent presence there? I don't think that is planned but I'm not privy to that kind of info.
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>It was another splendid day in Iraq yesterday, with 20+ people killed. Some of them were Iraqi soldiers (or are they called police? -- the guys who are supposed to take over for U.S. military forces when we leave) who were publicly executed by Shia militiamen. It also came out that a unit from another part of Iraq, comprised of Shia, refused to be deployed to Bahgdad to put down a Shia-led insurgency. So much for the concept of a force that represents all of Iraq, not just one side in the sectarian battle. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that a civil war is already underway. Meanwhile, the inflation rate is up to 70%, with the prices of many basic goods like meat and gasoline up over 100% this year.

BTW, what was it called before it got renamed into "sectarian violence"? Last time we had a war of everyone against everyone else was either Lebanon in the eighties, or Bosnia in 1992-93. Didn't have access to English language news at the time, so I can't know what was it called then.