You have everything so well pinned down in Iraq. You have managed to isolate, define, delineate, and describe precisely who the enemy is.

You say, <"The people we are fighting in Iraq are, basically, a combination of Baathist holdovers and Islamic terror groups, including al Qaeda."> Why this must be just a handful at this time, after all the bullets and bombings.

With your love of quantification you might take time to find a good estimate of the number of Baathist before the invasion, the number in "terror groups (including al Qaeda) subtract the total numbers of Iraqiis killed to date, and give us a number of these few straglers that are causing so much trouble.

With this valuable information, we might well be able to formulate additional plans to take our troops out of harms way. Your contribution to the war effort will be applauded by liberals and conservatives alike.

Publius