Fat Lady Reaching Coda
Tikrit is ours. It was the last major city. The chaos in places like Baghdad is getting under control, as police have begun coming back to work and the population has become a bit less hysterical. Evidence is that even the suicide bombers have been, for the most part, imported rather than home-grown.
Saddam's vision of controlling most of the Middle East has, it appears, been completely crushed.
Also the French have decided to go ahead and allow America to have a role in shaping post-Saddam Iraq--which is awfully decent of them, don't you think?
(All links from Command Post.)
Eh, we always knew the French would come through in the clutch...
HokiePundit,
What are you saying? The French came through just fine. By staying the hell out of our wartime coalition. Who knows? With them involved, the saddamites might have chased the coalition all the way back to the ships on the Persian Gulf. We really don't need any more Viet Nams. Let these guys concentrate on snarling at the foreigh tourists in Paris, which is what one comes to expect from their taxicab drivers.
(I sometimes think Marshal Joffre won the battle of the Marne in September 1914 by turning the taxicab drivers themselves loose on the German Army instead of just using them to ferry troops to the front line.)
C'est la guerre.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold, wasn't that Sarrail that used the taxis?
Nope, it was Gallieni, who was in charge of Paris. Joffre just took credit for it later; it it had been up to him the Germans would have possibly beaten France. All Joffre wanted to do was fall back, then fall back, then (as a variation) fall back very quickly...
sam hellp how are u this is yourself