Military Advisor Issues Blistering Iraq Report

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a widely respected advisor to the U.S. military, has released a blistering report on the current situation in Iraq. McCaffrey's findings are based on interviews with dozens of officials during a March, 2007, trip to the war-torn region and Kuwait.

"We are at the 'knee of the curve,'" writes McCaffrey. His report, available here, employs few niceties in describing the disorganization and deterioration in Iraq.

The retired Army general, now a professor of International Affairs at West Point, estimates that 3,000 Iraqi citizens are murdered each month, with some 2,900 IED attacks a month against U.S. forces.

McCaffrey does credit the new commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, as improving the situation on the ground. But that doesn't stop him from warning that the military is "in a position of strategic peril" while fighting a war which could weaken the U.S. for decades to come.

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