I know these are very sensitive decisions and it is extremely hard to have a sense of things unless you are there on the ground. But this deal seems to me basically a retreat. The Iraqi forces may well patrol the streets, but there’s no way they’re actually going to root out, capture, and kill the insurgents. So the 2,000 or so insurgents there will live to fight and kill another day. This is the rough history of what happened: we watched American bodies get mutilated and abused, without lifting a finger. We said we would track down those responsible, and sent Marines into Falluja with photos of some of the alleged perpetrators. They met stiff resistance. We surrounded the city and said the insurgents had to surrender or else. We then cut a bogus ceasefire deal, under which the insurgents were supposed to give up their heavy weapons. They did no such thing. Then we made more threats, warning of an all-out assault. That petered out into the current deal. I know there are benefits and costs to all these decisions, and we have to be concerned about civilian casualties, Iraqi opinion, and the cost to the Marines of going in, but this seems to be a decision that will be more costly in the long run.