The Great Game

...[A] top-secret assessment by the Marines' Chief of Intelligence that focused on the catastrophic situation of his undermanned Corps in the heartlands of Iraq's Sunni insurgency. He concluded, according to the Post's Tom Ricks, that "the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there."

Couldn't get much worse, you'd think. Then, Major General Richard C. Zilmer, the senior Marine commander, decided to "dispute" both news accounts. His [argument] was that "he had sufficient forces to carry out his mission but that the mission did not include defeating the insurgency."

# posted by Jacob @ 9/15/2006 01:13:00 p.m.