…report today in the NY Times about the performance of Iraqi troops and police. There have been bright spots, but the overall picture doesn’t look so great at the moment. Check out the Marines referring to a helicopter carrying Iraqi police as the “clown car.” Or the bit about an Iraqi National Guard unit’s complicity in the abduction and killing of its own battalion commander. Some Iraqi forces are so terrified of being identitified that they don’t tell their own families what they are doing. I know the Times accentuates the negative (see post below), but this report more or less conicides with what plugged-in hawks have been telling me about the performance of the Iraqi forces–bright spots, but much work to be done.