One Chris Lehmann (I don't know him from Adam, but he seems to have a blog with a following and does not, unlike some empty hats I can think of, cower behind a nom de guerre) vouches for the following account from, he says, a friend working as a "contractor" in Iraq:

I know about the news. We need Collin Powell back in charge. Discipline is slipping in the forces and it reminds one of the Viet-Nam pictures of old. Instead of a professional military outfit here we have a bunch of cowboys and vigilantes running wild in the streets. The ugly American has never been so evident. Someone in charge needs to drop the hammer on this lack of discipline, especially that which is being hown by the Special Forces, security contractors, and "other government agencies". We won the war but that doesn't mean we can treat the people of this couotry with contempt and disregard with no thought to the consequences. Those contractors, just like the last ones who were killed, were out running free with no military escort. Armed or not, that is a breach of protocol and a severe security risk. While I grieve for the families of those persons I would like to see the person who decided that it was alright for them to convoy out there without the military brought up on charges, unless of course that person was in the convoy, in which case at least he won't be getting anyone else killed. I'm angry about how we're treating peope here. I know it's not the entire military, in fact it is a very small, select group that believes they are somehow above the law of not ony this land but also the law of the military and those laws we hold dear in ouor own country. If someone were to try to treat our fellow Americans the way some of these people are treating the Iraquis the courts would certainly lock them away. I would phrase that last line harsher, but in light of recent events that would be cruel. Discipline is needed here, and I'm not certain that our current administration is prepared to take the steps necessary to crack down on all of this. In order for discipline to be restored I do believe Donald Rumsfield would have to admit that perhaps Powell's rules of war were in fact valid.

[link|http://www.beaconschool.org/~clehmann/MT/archives/001766.php|http://www.beaconsch...chives/001766.php]

And we have this from Salon:

Farther down the U.S. military chain of command, there are also others who understand the general disenchantment. "I really don't care for the Iraqi people, I don't care about helping them get back on their feet," an Army captain stationed in the Sunni triangle wrote home to his family last year. "However, I don't condone stealing from them, hurting them unnecessarily or threatening them with violence if it is not needed. We will never win hearts and minds here, but what these guys are doing is wrong."

The young officer was referring to his neighboring unit, who, as he related, had been robbing Iraqis during house raids and other security operations -- a phenomenon widely reported by Iraqis the length and breadth of the country, though for the most part discreetly unmentioned in the U.S. press. Yet it represents merely the bottom-most and crudest layer of an occupation that Iraqis have come to regard as both cruel and corrupt.

Even if they escape casual robbery at roadblocks, Iraqis know that, despite the billions allegedly disbursed by the U.S. for reconstruction, the electricity is still off for most of the day, hospitals are short of the most basic medicines, and the chances of finding a job are slim -- especially for their wives and daughters, who in any case must brave rape or kidnap whenever they venture out the door. They also know about the rich pickings enjoyed by those Iraqis favored by the occupiers, such as members of the handpicked Governing Council pushing their way through the traffic in their convoys of white U.S.-supplied SUVs -- and the even richer pickings garnered by those at the top of the corruption pyramid, such as Halliburton.

[link|http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/04/08/occupation/index.html|http://www.salon.com...pation/index.html]

It's just a whisper as yet, but among the commentators of the right, in print and online, I get a sense of the early draft of an exit strategy, or rather of a PR offensive, being test-marketed, and that is that the Iraqis just weren't worthy of our heroism, our generosity, of the blood and treasure we selflessly sacrificed on their behalf, and that if they persist in their swinish ingratitude we—having accomplished the important mission of removing Saddam Hussein, who would have had 20,000 multiple-warhead ICBMs deployed by now if we hadn't saved the world by intervening—well, darn it, we'll just leave these bad people to stew in the rubble.

I doubt that the junta will pull out before next fall, but if they do, that's how they'd sell it, I believe.

cordially,