The central government of Iraq that we were trying to help had all but wasted away, with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish believers splintered into many competing sects, Iraq's political landscape had become a clutter of disorder, violence, and mayhem. Our policy was based on the expectation that the Iraqi army would subdue the militias of these rival groups and reestablish the central government's control over the country while the multinational force helped maintain order. But the Iraqi army simply wasn't strong enough to bottle up the centuries of seething sectarian hatred in Iraq; nor did they have the will to fight their countrymen, especially those with similar religious beliefs.