From a fascinating op-ed piece in the NY Times by Edward Luttwak (a brilliant historian) comes this quote:
"Intelligence is to counterinsurgency what firepower is to conventional warfare, and we just do not have it or the capacity to gather information on our own. Thus the sacrifices of our troops on the ground are mostly futile."
I don't think I've ever heard a more damning indictment of our situation in Iraq.
Certainly not one more cogently put.