MEA CULPA, SORTA

The formerly gung-ho Ralph Peters in today's New York Post, arguing that U.S. troops may soon have to leave Iraq:

...It's absurd to brag that Iraq now has 300,000 men in uniform if all most of them do is collect paychecks and duck responsibility - while backing their own ethnic and religious factions.

And, although it pains me to write it, we can't trust the judgment of our military officers as to whether Iraqi troops and police are making sufficient progress. Clientitis happens. Our trainers inevitably cling to the success stories, insisting, Yeah, those other guys poked the pooch - but Col. Mohammed's men are doing a great job.

Our advisers develop emotional bonds with their Iraqi charges and lose big-picture objectivity....

Ralph Peters in the New York Post, March 9, 2006:

...It's routinely declared a failure by those who yearn for the new Iraq to fail. But an increasingly capable Iraqi military has been developing while reporters (who never really investigated the issue) wrote it off as hopeless....

... Brig.-Gen. Dan Bolger, our Army officer charged with "assisting the Iraqis in forming their military" ... [is] impressed that, after some undeniable birth pains (before Bolger's tenure), the Iraqi army's development is accelerating impressively....

Bolger exploded another myth - that the new Iraqi military's been infiltrated by militia members.... In the recent flare-up, sectarian issues had not been a problem in a single Iraqi unit....

Bolger's a man whose judgment I trust, having known him for 20 years.... If he's confident, I'm confident. And Dan believes that, if we have a reasonable amount of patience, the new Iraqi military will emerge as the best in the Arab world - and a firm ally in the region....

Nice to know Peters has seen the flaw in his reportorial technique.

Now if he'd only apologize to the reporters who, he told us, "never really investigated the issue," and whom he accused of laziness, cowardice, and dishonest pursuit of a partisan agenda, but who nevertheless, somehow, seem to have arrived at the truth about the situation in Iraq while he was still busy cheerleading.