Feb 16 2008
Updates On Success In Iraq
Some interesting articles I ran across for the weekend reading (though I intend to be out and about mostly). Seems General Patraeus is, for once, cautiously upbeat about what we have achieved in Iraq:
If you’re looking for one measure of the impact of last year’s troop surge in Iraq, look at Gen. David Petraeus as he walks through a Baghdad neighborhood, with no body armor, and no helmet.
It’s been one year since the beginning of what’s known here as Operation Fardh Al Qadnoon. According to the U.S. military, violence is down 60 percent. One key to the success is reconciliation.
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The results of the last year can be seen on the streets. A soccer team practices on the local pitch. The stalls in the market buzz with customers. I stop to talk to local residents, and ask if they feel a difference. Overwhelmingly, the answer is a resounding yes.
Reconciliation – that key element the Surrendercrats claimed was missing from the result of the Surge and Awakening to make them a success. It seems the Surrendercrats continue to demonstrate how wrong they have been for many years now regarding Iraq.
The Iraqi government, as usual is much more bold in their views of the victories in Iraq, and are very bullish on the future of America’s new ally in the war on terror:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki proclaimed on Friday that Al Qaeda had been routed in Baghdad thanks to a security plan launched a year ago, and would soon be defeated throughout the country.
‘Thank God, we destroyed the cells of Al Qaeda. They have been chased out of Baghdad and this has opened the way for their defeat throughout Iraq,’ Maliki said at a ceremony marking the launch on February 14 last year of the Baghdad security plan, known as Operation Fardh Al Qanoon (Imposing Law).
‘Today our forces are locked in battle against outlaws in Nineveh and we are chasing them,’ he added, referring to the northern province where Iraqi officials say Al Qaeda has regrouped after fleeing Baghdad.
Maliki on January 25 announced a ‘decisive battle’ against Al Qaeda in Nineveh province, and sent troop and police reinforcements to the provincial capital Mosul, which the US military says is the last urban stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The prime minister thanked ‘all those who helped make the security plan a success and who saved the country from the miserable situation it was in due to Al Qaeda’s violence and terrorism.’
Maliki is rightly declaring success over al-Qaeda. Not only are the terrorists being routed, their donations are drying up and their forces are starved for recruits to the point they are training children and tricking the mentally ill. It is so bad for them they have had to publicly admit they should not be randomly massacring Muslims. And all of this has come with crashing public support for al-Qaeda in the Muslim world. Yes, Maliki and Petraeus both have valid reasons to be proud of their victories. The fighting is not quite over yet – but the trend lines are clear.
Finally I have another article covering those al-Qaeda documents which outline the depth of defeat for al-Qaeda (while Surrendercrats were claiming in DC the Surge was a failure)
Though largely dismissed by the Democratic left, America’s “surge” policy is paying attractive dividends. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is in retreat, violence is down and political reconciliation is up.
In a 16-page letter that U.S. soldiers found last October near Baghdad, AQI leader Abu Tariq complained that his 600-man force had dwindled to 20 terrorists.
“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers,” he moaned, as Sunnis swapped AQI for the USA. This shift “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight,” another AQI chief whined in his own missive discovered in November near Samarra. His network, he said, suffered “total collapse.”
Terrorism is collapsing across Iraq.
Logic is a pretty hard-nosed mental exercise which can shred preconceptions and biases away from even the most delusional. It clearly helps those with an open mind to assess conditions without the static from partisan propaganda. Logic dictates that the al-Qaeda leader knows better than Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama what is going on in Iraq. Moreover, logic dictates that the letter is a cry for help from someone who needs to shore up his defeated forces, and therefore it is a benefit to this beleaguered leader to be honest in his statements. Logic dictates there is no reason for this man to lie or exaggerate, since failure is usually met with execution in the world of the Jihad.
On the flip side logic dictates that the Surrendercrats (a.k.a. Democrats) have a lot to lose politically if the letters concerning Iraq’s victory over al-Qaeda is true. Logic shows us a victory in Iraq could cripple the democrats for decades as they pinned their hopes on America losing and Bush pinned his efforts and reputation on America winning. Logic dictates the Surrendercrats would benefit most by lying to America in order to save their political skin.
Logic also dictates that to lie to America in hopes of creating a dangerous defeat in Iraq is the equivalent of doubling down on the initial strategy to root for defeat in Iraq. It was bad enough to not have faith America and Freedom would not win out over al-Qaeda and bloody fascism. But to then try and cover up the fact that they were wrong, to the point of denying reality, indicates not only bad judgement but suicidally bad judgement. And America is watching Iraq all this year and factoring it into their decisions for November. There is no denying that fact.
AJ and everybody,
I found this briefing to be a realistic assessment on Iraq and Afghan by Anthony Cordesman. It may be worth peoples time.
PRESS BRIEFING ON IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, AND GULF REGION
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A lot of what I am going to say about the military situation is positive. But I think we need to recognize more clearly that each country’s political weaknesses, its internal problems, and its neighbors, may really be what determines the outcome. I also may use the term victory occasionally during this briefing, and I want to be clear about what that is. It is essentially that we end up with a reasonable degree of security, stability, and a reasonably friendly state.
The idea that we’re going to transform either Afghanistan or Iraq into something approaching a Western democracy or a modern power within the foreseeable future is simply not realistic. As one aid worker put it in Iraq, you are never going to get our version of democracy. The best you can ever hope for is Iraq-racy. And I think that that is a realistic perspective.
There are two other points that became clear. Throughout the theater, regardless of where I went or the colleagues who traveled with me, we saw presentations and plans that divided counterinsurgency into three dimensions. These were security; they were governance; and they were development. Particularly in Iraq but also in Afghanistan, it was not the security dimension, the kinetics, the war-fighting that were the critical problems. The critical problems lay in governance and in development. Both in terms of the inability of the host country to move forward quickly, effectively, and without corruption, and the limits in terms of a lack of aid workers, particularly skilled aid workers, and the lack of resources that could deal with the immediate problems.
The second message is one of timelines. When you go into the forward area or you talk to people who are in headquarters, no one talks in real terms about decisive years or irreversible momentum; 2008 is going to have to give way to 2009. The plans you see almost invariably have timeframes like 2012, 2015, and 2020. These are going to be long wars, which require consistent U.S. efforts.
Klimt,
CSIS is just another political action group with NO access to the real data on the ground. these ‘think tanks’ are all over DC and meaningless.
As AJ says, this war is won. But liberals don’t see victory because a victory for America’s capitalist-supported military is a defeat for their socialist vision for America. Don’t expect any of them to acknowledge the Iraq war victory.
Dem candidates on the stump constantly promise to “bring the world together”, to make the world “like us again”. They forget the role respect for consequences has in making us safe. Germany didn’t elect Merkel because Germans all of a sudden loved America; ditto France and Canada, and others. The world is embracing America because America carries a gun, and the Iraq war displays a willingness to use it. It’s safer for them now to embrace America, it’s never been about love.