"Reflecting the U.S. military's inability to get much solid intelligence on the numbers, identity or organization of the opposition, this senior Army officer said he had almost no idea of who was behind Wednesday's attack -- Baathists or Islamic extremists, Iraqis or foreigners, centrally controlled or operating haphazardly. "
"The quality of U.S. intelligence in Iraq has proven to be a major problem in recent months and was criticized in a recent internal Army study. While commanders generally say the volume of information coming in has increased, there are still widespread complaints about the lack of coordination and integration of the data. Trustworthy interpreters and intelligence analysts fluent in Arabic remain in short supply.
"We're not just getting the human intelligence we need to figure out some of those linkages, across regions, within regions and the national level," Swannack agreed. "
One of the reasons for not getting the intelligence they need is the way the occupation and pacification campaign was undertaken.
After combat operations were finished, the US military wanted more troops in the country, in fact, some wanted to flood the country with troops. Rumdumb vetoed that action.
BIG mistake.
As a result the was a vacuum in many parts of Iraq. The troops missed out on collecting valuable intelligence and establishing rapport with the civilians.
Furthermore, the caches of weapons problem was not addressed immediately. (Although the problem is finally getting attention IMO it is now too late). Also the price being paid for turning weapons in is too low: $500 for a shoulder launched missle is stupid.
IMO the current situations shows that the people running the show have screwed up big time and are behind the eight ball.
If you get a chance read the US Army afteraction report.
