Path in Itaq and Afghanistan take ominous turn-Geyer

[bronxiteforever]

WASHINGTON -- Correspondents covering complicated foreign stories tend to go on indicators. When does a story that has stayed about the same for a long time suddenly turn down the opposite road? Why are the best analysts suddenly worried? How does a new reality loom on the horizon almost overnight?

This week -- ironically, during the somber fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, as President Bush was seeing nothing but light at the end of the tunnel -- a number of ominous indicators in both Iraq and Afghanistan have come into a very different light. It is not a pretty picture:

First, let's look at the situation in Iraq's Al-Anbar province, which comprises roughly 30 percent of Iraq and sits just east of Jordan. A number of intelligence reports, in particular one by Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer, show that Sunni Anbar has been taken over by al-Qaida. CNN's Michael Ware, probably the best of the combat correspondents, was saying all week that al-Qaida openly boasts a large marked headquarters of its own -->Gen. Zilmer, a respected officer, made further revealing remarks when he said that, after all, the U.S. was not really attempting to win the war in the strategically placed province that could eventually come to threaten Jordan. Our purpose was only to train Iraqi troops to fight there. But those troops are Shiites, and the local Sunnis hate them.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucgg/aswepass911milestonepathstakeanominousturn