TIP OFF:

Gains in Iraq, but no 'tipping point': Despite recent bombings and a kidnapping, insurgent attacks are down as are numbers of US troops wounded. (Peter Grier and Faye Bowers, 4/15/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

For US forces in Iraq, the good news is that they appear to be making progress in their battle against an entrenched insurgency. The bad news is that the insurgents are far from defeated - and it will be some time before Iraqi government forces can fight the rebels on their own.

It's true, as President Bush noted in a speech this week, that the new Iraqi government's own security forces now outnumber in-country US troops. But experts note that the majority of these are police and lightly armed security guards, and are not really comparable to US military personnel.

Thus the bottom line is that large numbers of US troops will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future, though the total may be reduced somewhat over the coming months.

When it comes to the Iraqi security situation "we still have no tipping point, and we face at least a tipping year," writes Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a new assessment of the situation.

Which begs the obvious question: how likely are you to know you're at the tipping point?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 14, 2005 6:17 PM