The sit­u­a­tion in Iraq has dete­ri­o­rated so far in the last two days that I frankly don’t know where to begin. But seven more troops have been killed since Mon­day morn­ing:

Amer­i­can Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 6, 2004 — Four Marines with the 1^st Marine Expe­di­tionary Force were killed April 5 as a result of enemy action while con­duct­ing secu­rity and sta­bi­liza­tion oper­a­tions in Iraq’s Anbar province, a Com­bined Joint Task Force 7 news release reported today.
No fur­ther infor­ma­tion on this inci­dent was avail­able.
Three Task Force 1^st Armored Divi­sion sol­diers were killed dur­ing sep­a­rate attacks April 5 and today in Baghdad’s Kad­himiya dis­trict, accord­ing to another release.
The first sol­dier died of wounds received dur­ing an attack that took place at about 11 a.m. April 5. The sol­dier was trav­el­ing with a south­bound con­voy when it was attacked with small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire.
A sec­ond sol­dier died at about 9:30 p.m. April 5 when an RPG struck his vehi­cle dur­ing a fire­fight in the same area. An RPG attack at 12:30 a.m. today killed a third sol­dier, who was in a Bradley fight­ing vehi­cle.
The names of the Marines and sol­diers are being with­held until their fam­i­lies are notified.

Iraqi Shi­ite Mus­lims chant anti-US slo­gans in Baghdad’s Shi­ite neigh­bor­hood of Sadr City. (AFP/Patrick Baz)I’m on dead­line again and can’t really give a com­plete run­down of the news, but check out Juan Cole, Bill­mon and Josh Mar­shall for some excel­lent roundups.
But If I can take a moment to be frank: I can­not begin to explain how angry I am at how Iraq has been han­dled. Arro­gance, heads-in-the-sandness and a com­plete lack of under­stand­ing of the cul­ture, peo­ple and his­tory of the coun­try has been the hall­mark of Washington’s pol­icy toward Iraq. The orig­i­nal plan called for 30,000 troops in August as happy natives bought Coca-Cola and waved lit­tle Amer­i­can flags. Such arro­gance. Now the Pen­ta­gon is mulling extra troops. “There’s no his­tory of eth­nic vio­lence in Iraq,” we were told by Iraqi exiles and Paul Wol­fowitz. Well, maybe that’s because the Iraqis have been ruled by an iron fist for a long, long time. Tom Fried­man once noted that by remov­ing Sad­dam, we would find out if Iraq was the way it was because of Sad­dam or if Sad­dam was the way he was because of Iraq. I think we can now say it’s the lat­ter. Sad­dam was bru­tal and — yes — evil, but when pro-American Iraqi blog­gers say Iraqis “deserve” Sad­dam, that’s a sign that the ball­game is almost over.

I have to admit that until now I have never longed for the days of Sad­dam, but now I’m not so sure. If we need a per­son like Sad­dam to keep those rabid dogs at bay then be it. Put Sad­dam back in power and after he fills a cou­ple hun­dred more mass graves with those crim­i­nals they can start wail­ing and cry­ing again for lib­er­a­tion. What a laugh we will have then. Then they can shove their filthy Hawza and marji’iya up some­where else. I am so dis­s­a­pointed in Iraqis and I hate myself for think­ing this way. We are not worth your trou­ble, take back your bil­lions of dol­lars and give us Sad­dam again. We truly ‘deserve’ lead­ers like Saddam.

Iraqis were _glad_ to be rid of Sad­dam, make no mis­take. But they had and still have a very com­pli­cated stew of feel­ings as to the way it hap­pened. But if even that glim­mer of good­will and grat­i­tude is fad­ing, what else is there? If they’re no longer even glad for that, then why the hell is the United States there?
And why this des­per­ate cling­ing to June 30? It smacks of a secu­rity blan­ket, of a child­ish admin­is­tra­tion so at a loss as to what to do that the only thing left is to cling to the one thing it has con­trol over: the date when sov­er­eignty will be returned. But returned to … who? The IGC is reviled on the street. The interim con­sti­tu­tion is rejected by most Shi’a. The Kurds just want to retreat to their moun­tains and the Sun­nis are scared to death of every­one.
And it’s not like the U.S. is going any­where. Large bases in al-Taji and else­where indi­cate that the U.S. is plan­ning on a long stay. The Pen­ta­gon will still have con­trol over the $18 bil­lion “gift” to Iraq from the peo­ple of the United States — except the Iraqis don’t actu­ally get the money or or have a say in how it’s spent. The country’s armed forces will still answer to the U.S. mil­i­tary. A reporter buddy who was in Iraq in Decem­ber and Jan­u­ary said — and I agree — that the CPA has spent a lot of time con­vinc­ing a lot of Iraqis — edu­cated and une­d­u­cated alike — that on July 1, the Amer­i­cans will be gone. When Iraqis wake up and the Amer­i­cans are still there, that will be a rude awak­en­ing for every­body.
The White House is “play­ing poker and has been bluff­ing for a long time with a pair of twos,” my reporter friend said.
And speak­ing of Amer­i­cans, mil­lions are so _angry_ at the waste of lives, money, pres­tige. So very _angry_ at the incom­pe­tence on the part of America’s lead­ers in the for­eign pol­icy sphere. How can any­one look at facts — real facts — and not see that what passes for “moral clar­ity” and “steely resolve” and “res­olute lead­er­ship” is actu­ally stub­born­ness, incu­rios­ity and dan­ger­ous iso­la­tion from con­trary views. Yeah, I’m talk­ing to you, Mr. Pres­i­dent. Your act doesn’t fool me. Your self-puffery doesn’t hide your lack of imag­i­na­tion and your dis­as­trous pol­icy choices made because you’re eas­ily swayed by pow­er­ful viziers. Your lack of engage­ment has killed 624 Amer­i­cans as of this writ­ing, 59 British troops and 44 other mem­bers of your coali­tion. God knows how many Iraqis have died. Your gen­er­als don’t bother to keep track.
You should never be for­given for these death — you should be held account­able. Come Novem­ber, I hope that you will be, because your Iraq pol­icy and, frankly, your entire admin­is­tra­tion is what Tal­leyrand said of Napoleon’s 1804 exe­cu­tion of the Duc d’Enghien: “It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake.”