How Much Longer?

Time is reporting this week that the Army has quietly released a contract announcement stating that it would like to calculate the "possible intensity and duration of a guerrilla war in Iraq." Given the recent exceedingly hostile and dangerous climate in Iraq -- especially in the city of Najaf where radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr has been hold up (he has thankfully now given signs that he is willing to take part in peace talks) -- this is a welcome move. Nonetheless, I cannot help thinking that such a study should have been performed, and would have proved significantly more useful, about a year and a half ago, or anytime before U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003. Mark Thompson writes in Time that there is yet to be any sort of reply from the Pentagon as to why such a study was not performed earlier. Still, kudos to those in charge of this sort of thing (Mr. Rumsfeld, I'm looking at you) for finally getting on the ball here, but seeing as how we're dealing with war -- that thing where people, even some in the most powerful army in the world, are killed -- lets try to be a bit more on top of this next time.