Then we get to the real gem of the article:
Although the nearly 160,000-member U.S. force in Iraq dwarfs the second-largest contingent — Britain's 8,000 in Iraq and 2,000 elsewhere in the Gulf region — its support has shrunk substantially.
In the months after the March 2003 invasion, the multinational force numbered about 300,000 soldiers from 38 countries. That figure is now just under 24,000 mostly non-combat personnel from 27 countries. The coalition has steadily unraveled as the death toll rises and angry publics clamor for troops to leave.
Get that? To emphasize the loss of a couple coalition members, the writer ignores past press complaints that we "unilaterally" invaded Iraq by claiming we had a "multinational force" in Iraq right after the invasion! And the author inflates by at least 100,000 the number of troops we had in the invasion force and immediate reinforcements that flowed in to the theater! If my memory serves me correctly, the US had 140,000 and the British had 40,000, plus smaller contingents of Aussies and Poles. Other US forces such as 4th ID and 3rd ACR flowed in for the occupation as Baghdad fell.
Unfreakingbelievable! I've noted this before, but the press will only admit we did something well if they want to condemn us for losing that something.
It really is amazing how much the press collectively just despises America and our war to free Iraq. Not content to say something we are doing is bad or being done poorly (whether their complaint is true or false is irrelevant for my point), they have to deny that they said the situation was bad or done poorly in the past in order to create a bigger contrast of purported failure today! Oh, and note what they named the link for the article: "iraq_crumbling_coalition." Subtle, huh?
But it is nice to see the press finally abandoning the silly "unilateral" meme at long last and admit we had a coalition to overthrow Saddam.
UPDATE: Jim L. points out that the article actually clearly implies, by comparing 24,000 allies in Iraq now to 300,000 coalition troops just after the invasion, that we've lost 276,000 allied troops since the end of major combat operations. Now, anybody that has paid close attention to the war knows that this is not true, but the article really is worse than I first assumed. People not familiar with the troop numbers could easily assume we once had 300,000 allied troops in Iraq in May 2003. I guess we need to debate whether this is sloppy, ignorant, or deliberately misleading reporting.
Let me add that I think the numbers of allies has been pretty constant since the British pulled out the bulk of their troops after the invasion. And our allies--other than the British--have suffered very few casualties.
