I am back from my California trip. It all went well, got a lot of business done, drove around Carmel and environs, saw my mother and many friends. Now, back to work. This story in Washington Post makes crystal clear the difficulties we are encountering in Iraq. It addresses the issue of the Iraqi secuiryt forces we are training and the extraordinary difficulties they, aspecially in the Sunni Triangle, are finding themselves in. There are partisans of the old order who will continue to harrass and attack these new guys, and this will probably be the case for a long time to come. We have to make sure they know that we are not going to leave them hanging. It is no good to continue to remind ourselves that--in our otherwise illustrious history--sometimes we have let people down. This should not be one of those cases. Courage and stamina are needed. Too much is at stake. President Bush understands this, according to this report of his speech at Fort Carson.