Seven NCO's fresh from a 15 month tour of duty in Iraq, got together and wrote an Op-Ed piece for The New York Times. The main Topic was, Why we cannot win the War in Iraq Militarily. After the piece was written and submitted, Fred Kaplan wanted to speak to them, trying to find them proved to be an unfinished task. At this time their whereabouts are unknown. Also to note one of the Seven was wounded before leaving Iraq. All that is known, it was a Head injury and he was supposed to live. It wasn't clear if he is among the missing.

The Seven men agreed on everything that was written. They felt the problem that would never have a fix, was the Iraqi Army and Police Force. The problems already made known, failure of the Army personell showing up for duty, leaving their units at any time, no respect for Iraqi Officers. The Army is not being supplied with modern weapons, not being supplied with essential equiptment or out dated and broken equiptment. The most disturbing problem is the Iraqi soldiers standing with American soldiers during the day, are at night -planting road side bombs. The reason they do this, is the lack of loyalty to the Americans. They are loyal to the militas they belong to or Religious sect they are attached to. Any progress that is made, it is generally short lived.

The Seven soldiers are not against the war, waiting to leave the military or constant trouble-makers. They all feel when General David Petraeus hands his report to the White House come September, there will be conflicting statements to their Op-Ed piece. It doesn't matter if the differences are written by General Petraeus himself or someone or one's at the White House.

This will create a quandry for some people. Those that Support the Troops and the War, will have to decide if the soldiers are being honest and telling the truth or the NYT has influenced them to bend the truth or lie.