Please explaining the reasoning of the NY Times

[rev]

Well, the presence of more international troops would lighten the persperctive that the Americans and British are invading and occupying forces.

Secondly, if a French, German, or Russian contractor could better complete a task than a no-bid American contractor (and at a cheaper price to the new Iraqi government), overall conditions would improve, leading to improvements in the security condition and less support for the resistance. We can't seem to maintain the electric power structure in Iraq, but a German company may have been able to have a solid system up and running by this point.

We're on a race against time. If we can't get our act together (and so far, we haven't), the resistance is going to gain power (though it's been dealt a significant blow in the past 24 hours).

[Ramo]

Occupation is only practical with large numbers of politically reliable troops. The more, the better. Iraqi guerillas can successfully kill low concentrations of occupation soldiers, but not high concentrations. Look at the recent spectacular failure of the Fedayeen's large-scale assault, and relative successes of the small-scale assaults this past month.

[Ned]

rev, the power grid and gas supply issues are caused by guerilla sabatoge. German expertise is not needed. German firepower is.