Thankfully George Bush is going to leave office with a big (and accurate) “Mission Accomplished” next to the war in Iraq line item. The progress in that country is snowballing fast. I had some good news stories from Iraq this morning, and more from the latter half of the day showed up. Here they are:

I love to see Bin Laden admitting Bush has destroyed his plans for Iraq, it really puts the lie to all the arm-chair Surrendercrats (and Surrendercans) who refuse to admit they were wrong and Bush was right:

Bin Laden said the failure of Sunni Arab insurgents to align with Al-Qaeda in Iraq is hurting the global jihadist effort and will ultimately impede the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq. He also criticized Sunni Arab tribal leaders in Iraq who have joined the fight against Al-Qaeda, saying they were weak-hearted and misled, and he took aim at Shi’ite leaders, including Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, saying they are quislings of the United States and Iran.

Poor Whittle Bin Whaden…. He is just so SCREWED. Thank you President Bush for not caving into those in the US who prayed for Bin Laden to defeat Bush. (BTW, wasn’t “quisling” the insult “shamnesty (but its REALLY about borders)” opponents called those on the GOP who disagreed with them? Coincidence?

We have two stories on stepped up offensives in Iraq to hunt down and destroy the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq (here and here). I am cutting a copy of the 2nd link because I am not sure it is a permalink:

U.S. forces have killed an Al Qaeda-in-Iraq leader who was suspected of helping to plan a large scale attack against coalition forces in the near future and arrested dozens of suspected extremists connected to the terrorist group in two days of mopping up operations, the U.S. military revealed a week after the incident occurred south of Baghdad.

Muhammad Khalil Ibrahim, the deputy military leader for the Al Qaeda network, operating south of the Iraqi capital, and two of his colleagues were killed when the coalition forces’ helicopters fired on their vehicle last Friday, the military said.

One of the most wanted terrorists in the list of the U.S. military, Ibrahim was “a key planner in numerous attacks against coalition forces operating in the Mahmudiyah area, and a facilitator of foreign terrorists and weapons,” a military statement said.

More than 40 suspected extremists including 32 criminals on the Iraqi Army’s “most-wanted list” were captured in a joint attack by the U.S. military and Iraqi Army in the Ubaydi farmland area on the next day.

Muqtada Sadr is extending his ceasefire and asking his followers to make peace with their rival Shiite factions. Bet few will learn of that huge change of events in Iraq.

And more and more refugees are returning to Iraq to restart their lives – a clear indication of the new environment washing over Iraq.

And in a huge sign of how Iraq has changed the face of Islam in the Middle East there are clear signs the Muslim-Arab media is undergoing a major transformation and now is not just a Bin Laden lapdog. Once the media turns on al-Qaeda it truly is the beginning of the end for Bin Laden’s butchers. Look at the stories now in Arab News – whodathunkit on 9/12/01. The heros in Iraq are those standing up and hunting down al-Qaeda. The martyrs in Iraq are those who died trying to stop al-Qaeda, not the al-Qaeda thugs massacring Iraqi Arab-Muslims.