Nightmare Scenario

by Nicholas von Hoffman

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0613-24.htm

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Obviously, our forces in Iraq will not be defeated in open battle by an opposing army as happened in 1940, but there is more than one way to stumble into a military disaster. Fragmented reports out of Iraq suggest we may be on our way to finding one of them. Defeat can come from overused troops. It does not help that one by one, the remaining members of the Coalition of the Willing give every appearance of sneaking out of town.

We know that US Marines accused of the Haditha massacre should not have been in Iraq. According to the Chicago Tribune , "Many of the US troops in Iraq are now on their second or third tour of duty in a conflict that has stretched beyond original expectations.... The Marine unit in Haditha was on its third rotation in Iraq when the incident allegedly occurred Nov. 19. The same month a year earlier, on a previous tour of duty, the unit had been engaged in fierce house-to-house fighting in the battle to retake Fallujah from insurgents."

Filtering out from Iraq are indicators of a military organization in danger of creeping disintegration. For three years our troops have been in a foreign land fighting God knows who for God knows why for God knows how long and God knows how many times. This now well-quoted paragraph from the June 12 edition of Newsweek hints at the price paid in order and morale: "The wife of a staff sergeant in the 3/1 battalion--members of which are currently accused of murdering Iraqi citizens in Haditha--says that there was 'a total breakdown' in discipline and morale after Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani took over as battalion commander when the unit returned from Fallujah at the start of 2005.... 'There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it,' she tells Newsweek...'I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha.'"

As awful as the killing of the twenty-four civilian Iraqis is, at this hour Haditha's importance is as an indicator of what's happening inside the American military organization there...