Increased violence in Iraq may force Bush to boost troop levels or find a quick way out.
By Thomas E. Ricks / Washington Post
http://www.detnews.com/2004/nation/0412/22/A01-40138.htm
WASHINGTON - In April 2003, as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was ending, the Pentagon projected in a formal planning effort that the U.S. military occupation of the country would end this month.
Instead, December 2004 brought the deadliest incident of the war for U.S. forces, with 22 people killed and 66 wounded Tuesday when a 122 mm rocket slammed into a dining tent during lunchtime at a U.S. base near the northern city of Mosul. The dead included 20 Americans - 15 of them service members and five civilian contractors. Forty-two of the wounded were U.S. troops, Capt. Brian Lucas, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said today.
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"Twenty-one months" - the length of the occupation so far - "is not a long time to tame the tribal warfare expected there," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Rick Raftery, an intelligence specialist who operated in northern Iraq in 1991. "My guess is that this will take 10 years."
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