"Progress Offset By Failure Everywhere"

Five soldiers, died Monday when their truck overturned near the Iraqi capital. Two soldiers, Staff Sgt. Yance Gray and Sgt. Omar Mora, were among the soldiers who wrote an op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times on August 19. They wrote that the chance of success in Iraq is "far-fetched" and said any progress reported was being "offset by failures elsewhere."

"Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence," they wrote. "When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages."

The soldiers also wrote that American soldiers were operating..

"in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear."