60% of Baghdad is still out of control.

Security forces in Baghdad have full control in only 40 percent of the city five months into the pacification campaign, a top American general said Saturday as U.S. troops began an offensive against two al-Qaida strongholds on the capital's southern outskirts.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said American troops launched the offensive in Baghdad's Arab Jabour and Salman Pac neighborhoods Friday night. It was the first time in three years that U.S. soldiers entered those areas, where al-Qaida militants build car bombs and launch Katyusha rockets at American bases and Shiite Muslim neighborhoods.

Odierno said there was a long way to go in retaking the city from Shiite Muslim militias, Sunni Arab insurgents and al-Qaida terrorists. He said only about "40 percent is really very safe on a routine basis" — with about 30 percent lacking control and a further 30 percent suffering "a high level of violence."

This is just one city. We cannot get control of just this one city.

I know that there are a lot of complicating factors that make this such a complex situation, but at the end of the day the most powerful military in the world cannot ensure the safety of the population in one city in Iraq. That is a pretty good indication of our ability to ever gain control of Iraq as a whole. We can't!

And it makes absolutely no difference how many brave young men and women we send into that charnel house, it will never do any good. We are essentially sending them to die. They may not die on the first tour so they will continue to be sent back until they do.

This is not a war this is a suicide mission, for our troops and for our country. As long as we are there we will remain unprepared for all of the deadly things that are happening in so many other parts of the world.