John Burns, Back from Baghdad: U.S. Effort In Iraq Will Likely Fail

John Burns, Back from Baghdad: U.S. Effort In Iraq Will Likely Fail

By E&P Staff

Published: March 10, 2006 12:15 AM ET

NEW YORK A day after returning to the U.S., after another long term as bureau chief in Baghdad, John Burns of The New York Times said on Bill Maher's Friday night HBO program that he now feels, for the first time, that the American effort in Iraq will likely "fail."

Asked if a civil war was developing there, Burns said, "It's always been a civil war," adding that it's just a matter of extent. He said the current U.S. leaders there--military and diplomatic--were doing there best but sectarian differences would "probably" doom the enterprise.

Burns said that he and others underestimated this problem, feeling for a long time that toppling Saddam Hussein would almost inevitably lead to something much better. He called the Abu Ghraib abuse the worst of many mistakes the U.S. made but said that even without so many mistakes the sectarian conflict would have gotten out of hand.

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Speaking from Cambridge, Mass., Burns observed that he had been on the ground for 24 hours and of all the people he had interacted with so far "no one supports this war."

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002157326

for helping to vote approval for the invasion.

nation minding its own business.

So NOW you tell us.

Thanks for helping sell this war in the first place. Maybe if you in the media had done some more reporting, instead of becoming obedient salesmen for Neo-Con policy, you would have figured that out long before now.

Hey, if you'd listen to fruitcakes like Dennis Kucinich back in 02-03, they could have told you that nd spared us all a lot of trouble.

But did the "adults" in the media and Washington listen? Nooooooooo....