Apr 26 2007
al Qaeda Loses Anbar Province
It seems our efforts in in Irag’s Anbar Province, once the hotbed of the insurgency, are far from the defeat Senator Surrender (Reid) has claimed in this
‘lost’ war:
The U.S. commander of multinational forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said Wednesday that efforts to quell unrest in the western Sunni province of Anbar have made almost “breathtaking†progress.
Speaking to reporters about the new U.S. strategy to curb sectarian violence in Iraq launched two months ago, based on a U.S. troop increase, Petraeus said: “We are ahead, I think, with respect … to the reduction of sectarian murders in Baghdad.
“Progress in Anbar is almost something that’s breathtaking,†he added.
The general illustrated his positive evaluation by citing the killing Friday of an al-Qaeda kingpin, identified by the U.S. command as the “security emir†for the east of Anbar province.
He also pointed to the capture of the head of an important weapons network and advances in intelligence about Iranian involvement in the conflict.
When Sen Surrender made his claim Iraq was lost could he possibly have been concluding this from the wrong side? Was he seeing the loss of al Qaeda? Dems have to realize they are in a politically dangerous dead end here. Either they get the funding to Bush and bury this issue now or they will find a veto coming to their surrender plans IN PARALLEL to news of sucesses rolling out of Iraq. And if their calls of surrender to Bin Laden are being seen in tandem with all sorts of wins on the ground from the Surge – the left will be the politically walking dead. We will have seen our first lame duck Congress as voters prepare to oust the liberals once and for all in 2008.
We live in historic times. And history could be ready to relegate both Liberalism and Islamo-Fascism to the dustbins of history. al Qaeda has no choice – they will lose now that they have lost the support of the Iraqis (whom they have been slaughtering with wild abandon). The Dems had a choice, but now it is simply how much of a hit do they want to take. Do they buckle now and take a the minimum hit (which will still be huge) or do they wait and take the death blow…..?
Update: If Dems will not listen to the military, maybe they will listen to the Sunni leaders who are taking their country back from Bin Laden’s butchers:
A most recent report says that the “Anbar Salvation Front†has captured a key leader affiliated with the “Islamic State of Iraq†organization, but this has not been confirmed, and questions remain over this particular report.
According to earlier reports, the Front announced the immanent defeat of al-Qa’ida-related groups in Anbar province, and asked for permission to pursue militants across provincial lines. Recent reports suggest that such clearance may have been granted.
…
The Front announced two weeks ago that the al-Qa’ida fighters were on the verge of defeat in Anbar province, according to al-Hayat. The tribal forces were pursuing al-Qa’ida members to the northern borders of Babil province, to the area known as the “triangle of death,†the paper writes.
The tribal forces announced they had conducted wide-ranging attacks in Ramadi, with the help of the Falluja police, and the al-Bu ‘Isa tribe in the Amiryiat al-Falluja area, targeting the remaining elements of the al-Qa’ida organization. The group said that the Askari and al-Julan areas of Ramadi had been completely cleared of al-Qa’ida-affiliates, according to al-Hayat’s report.
The tribe announced its success in battles around the Ramadi and Falluja areas, and said that remnants of the militant groups had been chased to the Jazirit Heet area west of Ramadi, al-Hayat writes.
We are on the verge of two defeats: al Qaeda in Anbar and Dems in America. Lesson to Senator Surrender – never promise defeat and then fail to come through. It’s worse than promising success and then failing.
The Senate just passed the surrender bill at 46 to 51. So they had a majority of 5 in the Senate and if I remember correctly 8 in the House. Not exactly veto proof.
Three senators changing sides would have made the difference. The Democrats are literally insane. They voted to start this war and they need to have the guts to see it through. We are almost there.
When Hillary says “If I knew than what I know now” she is really saying:
“Had I known that our base was so radical …”
Yeah, but we can all say if we knew then what we know now about a lot of things, that does not mean we can just run away.
When will this bill go to Bush? On 4/30? Hope Bush vetoes it.
Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda represents aobut 5% of the total insurgents. The vast majority are Sunni and Shia fighters unrelated to the terrorist al-Qaeda cells.
And before trumpeting Petraeus’ surge, READ his counterinsurgency manual. Petraeus newly-minted counterinsurgency approach calls for a ratio of 25 soldiers per 1,000 residents — which would require 120,000 soldiers to provide the proper security for Baghdad, and roughly three times that amount for all of Iraq [sound familiar – it’s the numbers Gen Shinseki was calling for before Rumsfeld’s doomed on the cheap troops provisions].
But let’s just focus on the 120,000 soldiers that, according to the manual written by Petraeus — “the expert on counterinsurgency,” — are needed to secure Baghdad. Simply put: we’re not even close to that number. And never will be. Even after all of the planned 21,500 additional troops are sent to the embattled capitol, there will still only be 85,000 security forces there — and that includes significant numbers of Iraqi security forces, whose readiness and loyalty have repeatedly proven to be unreliable at best.
Meanwhile – unless George has a draft up his sleeve – where are the other 200,000 troops we need according to the manual written by Petraeus?
Petraeus says it will take 120,000 soldiers to succeed. Instead, he’s being asked to do it on the cheap — and pretend that he’s getting what he needs. And this is just in terms of troops. Petraeus’ manual also says that a muscular military presence is just 20 percent of what is needed for a counterinsurgency effort to succeed — the other 80 consists of establishing political and economic reform, two areas in which the United States is also failing miserably.
Soothie,
You cannot look at a manual and pretend Anbar is now won….
LOL! You know what? I see you understand I am right about the disaster your liberal movement will face if successes start happening in Iraq.
If we were too late on the Surge Dems may survive. But if Anbar is truly cleared of insurgents then the Dems are too late – and they will not survive.
Your panic proves you see the same thing… And you are not very confident in the Dems being right.
I don’t blame you. They could be on the brink of an epoch political disaster which will make their screw ups on Vietnam pale in comparison.
Not sure what to make out of this but it sure appears to be a HUGE number of arrests in Baghdad over the past 24 hours. Looks like we might have managed lift a corner and rip some networks up by the roots at first glance. From the Kuwait news agency KUNA:
Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda represents aobut 5% of the total insurgents. The vast majority are Sunni and Shia fighters unrelated to the terrorist al-Qaeda cells.
Sooth, IIRC, you’ve made this assertion on more than one occasion. Do you have access to intelligence reports that the rest of us don’t. I do still have some contacts within the active spook community, and, while your number (5%) may not be too far off, the amount of violence for which that 5% is responsible far exceeds their raw numbers. They are the ones who are keeping the sectarian pot stirred.
Our self-appointed Soothsayer said:
That was true last year, and even to some extent true as recently as six months ago but not any longer. Several of the former Iraqi “insurgent” groups and tribes are now allied with us so the percentage of the insurgency that is represented by al Qaida has grown from say 5% to probably something closer to 50%. While the number if insurgents is down, the proportion of them that is al Qaida is larger than before. This is because non al Qaida groups are now casting their lot with the Iraqi government. Your information is obsolete and no longer reflects the situation on the ground.
Also your yammering about numbers isn’t taking into account some significant details. You don’t seem to be counting the 10 divisions (soon to be 12 divisions) of Iraqi troops in your equation. Nor do you seem to be counting the tribal paramilitary forces that have been so effective the past 8 weeks or so in Anbar.
Sunnis are now joining the Iraqi military and police in droves, this was not the case only six months ago. al Qaida is being pushed out of Anbar into Babil and Diyala provinces. They appear to be preparing for a final stand in Diyala with recent estimates of around 2,000 of the most hardcore al Qaida preparing a “Hezbollah” style defense to include anti-tank teams and conventional infantry in addition to the more unconventional IED and suicide teams. The difference now is that they are losing the cover of the local population who is increasingly turning against them. They are no longer operating on friendly ground and the environment around them is turning poisonous to them.
You conclusions are valid only when reached through obsolete and incomplete information. The facts appear to be overtaking your predictions at an increasing pace. Diyala will be the end of al Qaida in Iraq for all practical purposes. They will have noplace left to go. They have been pushed from Anbar, they have burned their bridges with the Shiites in the South, the Kurds are keeping them out of the far North and our troops are going to shortly begin clearing the pocket known as “The Triangle of Death” that overlaps the border region of Anbar/Baghdad/Babil provinces.
They are preparing for their final stand and it will be violent. But I also believe it will be shorter in duration than the Anbar campaign was which took two years.
Sooth:
The big attacks last week that Reid referenced were all AlQaida.