WTF Is It Now?!?

Iraq sinks into postwar morass
June 18 2003, the Telegraph:

The United States-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is "in chaos" and suffering from "a complete absence of strategic direction", a very senior British official in Baghdad has said.

The comments paint a grim picture of American misadministration incompetence and mismanagement as the Coalition Provisional Authority struggles to run post-Saddam Iraq.

The comments were made as a US soldier was killed by sniper fire while on patrol in Baghdad on Monday evening. Forty-one soldiers have died in attacks and ambushes in Iraq since the main combat operations were declared over on May 1.

"The operation is chronically under-resourced and suffers from an almost complete absence of strategic direction," a British source said.

The heavy-handed presence of American soldiers and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of any visible Iraqi partnership in government is adding to resentment.