At the turn of 2007, the United States was facing defeat in Baghdad. Shia and Sunni were on killing sprees, the supply line from Kuwait was under constant attack, and F-16s were in action on Haifa Street, less than a mile from the fortified US embassy.
Yet commanders in Iraq, and civilians from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld downwards, clung to a bankrupt strategy: withdraw US forces to colossal operating bases outside town — Camp Victory, Camp Liberty — and leave the streets to an untrained Iraqi army, the sectarian national police and to the thieves and murderers.
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