GAME. OVER.

McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder) has done superb reporting about Iraq and it was first to report that war with Iraq was inevitable (February, 2002). Now they report that another piece of Fredo's Grand Plan for Iraq is no longer operative:

Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy
By Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Apr. 19, 2007

WASHINGTON - Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.

Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. ... Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention of training Iraqi troops on Thursday during a visit to Iraq.

President Bush first announced the training strategy in the summer of 2005. "Our strategy can be summed up this way," Bush said. "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."

Throughout 2006, Casey and top Bush administration leaders touted the training as a success, asserting that eight of Iraq's 10 divisions had taken the lead in confronting insurgents.

Most important, insurgents and militiamen had infiltrated the forces, using their power to carry out sectarian attacks.

In nearly every area where Iraqi forces were given control, the security situation rapidly deteriorated. The exceptions were areas dominated largely by one sect and policed by members of that sect.