Juan Cole gave just one example of why U.S. troop presence in Iraq is not only worthless and wasteful, but also detrimental:

Sunni Arabs in Iraq blamed US troops for not protecting Sunni mosques and worshippers from violence. The US military ordered the US soldiers in Baghdad to stay in their barracks and not to circulate if it could be helped. [Later reports said some US patrols has been stepped up.] This situation underlines how useless the American ground forces are in Iraq. They can't stop the guerrilla war and may be making it worst. Last I knew, there were 10,000 US troops in Anbar Province with a population of 1.1 million. What could you do with that small force, when the vast majority of the people support the guerrillas? US troops would be useless if they had to fight in alleyways against sectarian rioters. If they tried to guard the Sunni mosques, they'd have to shoot into Shiite mobs, which would just raise the level of violence they face from Shiites in the south.

What an incredibly idiotic situation Butcher Bush, Shooter Cheney and Dumbsfeld have put our young men and women in. Not only are they cowering behind barriers, doing virtually nothing good, but when they do get ordered to venture outside, they are then in danger of getting their arms and legs blown off, if not killed. I don't understand why every decent American is not marching on Washington right now, demanding that their government stop this madness.