THE AP

I was a little disappointed to read this review of Sicko by the AP. It might as well have come from the Heritage Foundation. On the other hand, Robert Burhns, the AP's military and security analyst, gets it right:

Analysis: Only Iraqis Can Win the War
Jun 30, 10:56 PM (ET)
By ROBERT BURNS


WASHINGTON (AP) - The harder President Bush has pushed to win in Iraq, the closer he has come to losing.

The question no longer is whether the U.S. military can fully stabilize Iraq. It cannot.

That was a possibility four years ago, immediately after Saddam Hussein's government fell. Before the insurgency took hold. Before U.S. occupation authorities lost any chance to avoid the sectarian strife of today's Iraq.

Now only the Iraqis can save Iraq.

The longer that U.S. forces fight, the more creative and deadly the insurgents become, the farther U.S. public support erodes and the more remote seem the chances that when troops finally leave, the outcome will look like victory.

One more worry is the wear and tear on the Army and Marine Corps. The services were straining to keep up a staggering pace of troop rotations even before Bush decided to send thousands more into and around Baghdad and before the Pentagon decided that rotations would be extended from 12 months - already viewed by many as too long - to 15 months.