McCAFFREY: LARGE NUMBERS OF U.S. FORCES WILL BE NEEDED IN IRAQ FOR UP TO 5 MORE YEARS

That should be the headline for this Washington Times story, which is being misread in some circles as great news:

The new Iraqi army is "real, growing and willing to fight," but lacks basic equipment and will need up to five more years before it can wage war without U.S. military help, says a new report by a retired four-star general who toured Iraq in April....

The battalion-level formation are in many cases excellent. Most are adequate," Gen. [Barry] McCaffrey says. "However, they are very badly equipped with only a few light vehicles, small arms, most with body armor and one or two uniforms. They have almost no mortars, heavy machine guns, decent communications equipment, artillery, armor, or [Iraqi] air transport, helicopter and strike support." ...

"This is simply a brilliant success story," Gen. McCaffrey writes. "We need at least two to five more years of U.S. partnership and combat backup to get the Iraqi army ready to stand on its own...."

McCaffrey says these folks could use a little more help:

U.S. agency support for the Iraq operation is "grossly inadequate." "The bottom line is that only the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces are at war."

A story at Military.com elaborates:

"A handful of brilliant, courageous, and dedicated Foreign Service Officers have held together a large, constantly changing, marginally qualified, inadequately experienced U.S. mission," he added, referring to the diplomatic apparatus based in Baghdad....

"The other U.S. agencies of government such as Justice, [the Department of Homeland Security], Agriculture and Transportation are in Iraq in small numbers for too short time periods," he adds....

Meanwhile, U.S. Central Command and the U.S. mission in Iraq are running out of economic reconstruction funds, the report states. More money is needed because "unemployment is a bigger enemy" in that country than insurgent forces, McCaffrey writes.

If all this is supposed to make me feel better about the way the war is going, er, it's not working.