Barack Obama purges Web site critique of surge in Iraq
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Monday, July 14th 2008, 8:10 PM

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

GOP rival John McCain zinged Obama as a flip-flopper. "The major point here is that Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong," said McCain, adding that Obama "refuses to acknowledge that it [the surge] is succeeding."

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, Obama, Petraeus

The following regards Barack Obama's argument that Iraq is not the central front on the war on terror, rather that Afghanistan/Pakistan is (more to that in a moment).

Of course, the very first problem with this is that Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leadership have plainly stated on several occasions prior to this that Iraq is indeed the central front on the war on terror.

The next problem for Obama, is that those experts on the subject, including those experts who are endorsing Obama, likewise believe that Iraq is the central front for the war on terror.

The following I took from the blogger Mad Irish:

All: Please note that Lee Hamilton, who introduced Sen. Obama at his speech in Washington today, disagrees with Sen. Obama on at least two central issues addressed in his speech today. Specifically, Sen. Obama today denied that Iraq has ever been a “central front in the war on terror,” despite the fact that Hamilton described Iraq as “a central front in the war on terror” in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee while he was co-chairing the Iraq Study Group. Further, three months ago in April 2008, Hamilton said he opposes “target dates” for withdrawal in Iraq -- something Obama is clearly continuing to embrace today with his 16-month timetable:


Obama vs. Hamilton On Iraq As “A Central Front In The War On Terror”

Obama Today: "In fact – as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain – the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was." (Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08)

In December 2006, Hamilton Told The Senate Armed Services Committee That Iraq Was “A Central Front In The War On Terror.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “If you asked the 10 members of the commission the question: “Is Iraq the central battlefront in the war on terror,” what answer would you have received?” … Hamilton: ‘I would strike the word “the” and use “a.” It is a central front. Look, al Qaeda today is a important part of the violence, but not as important as sectarian violence. It is a central front in the war on terror, but to make it THE central front overstates it.” (Lee Hamilton, Committee On The Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Testimony, 12/7/06)

Obama vs. Hamilton On Timetables For Iraq Withdrawal

Obama Today Attacked Those Who Oppose Timetables, And Offered His Own 16-Month Timetable: “We Can Safely Redeploy Our Combat Brigades At A Pace That Would Remove Them In 16 Months.” “George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq – they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn’t leave when violence was up, they say we can’t leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government – not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq’s borders. … We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months.” (Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08)

Hamilton In April 2008: "I'm not a great fan, incidentally, of target dates in foreign policy as a rule and in Iraq specifically." (MSNBC's "MSNBC Live," 4/11/08)
It's bad enough Barack Obama is attempting to revise history by acting as though he's always been an advocate of the Petraeus Surge (he has, for instance, now scrubbed his campaign website of all comments that were negative regarding the Surge), but that he's dictating policy and offering a plan on Iraq before actually traveling to Iraq and talking to General Petraeus is not just counterproductive but a foolish campaign move too.

A final point regarding the Obama camp's claim that Iraq is not the central front on terror, or only became the central front on terror after the US invaded Iraq -- FLYPAPER.

It was smart strategy to lure our enemies into the open from out of the shadows of Saudi Arabia or the caves of Afghanistan, or mosques in Europe for that matter.

If Democrats are going to get all queasy about 4,000 dead in Iraq, where the terrain is flat and far more friendly to US technology, how would they ever stomach a war in the miserable terrain of the Hindu Kush mountains, where our advantages like helicopter warfare would become neutralized due to climate and terrain?

Labels: 2008, Afghanistan, Iraq, mccain, Obama, Petraeus, war on terror

The fatal defeatists of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc., may all believe we're losing in Iraq, but apparently Iraq's neighbors do not:

[WSJ] The Prime Minister is also making it clear to his Arab neighbors that his government is not about to collapse. Apparently, they believe him: Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have announced plans to break the Arab diplomatic embargo of Iraq and return their ambassadors to Baghdad; the UAE has also forgiven $7 billion of Iraqi debt. Perhaps Saudi Arabia and Egypt will follow.
Ho-hum, more just desserts from the Petraeus surge and not a word from our mainstream media regarding it. Indeed, antiwar liberals as a whole have invested so much in our defeat in Iraq that they choose to ignore any facts of success, especially since good news in Iraq translates to a more competitive campaign from John McCain. And the mainstream media certainly can't have anyone ruining the promotion of their favorate rock-star-in-chief, Barack Obama.

Example: what hardball toics did NBC Today Show co-anchor Meredith Vieira press upon Obama? His shopping habits and that he liked pie over candy and junk food. Tough stuff.

The, ahem, hard-hitting program spent 20 minutes on the Obama family. Can the McCain family expect equal time from NBC? Of course, that might be more difficult since McCain's two sons are both serving in our armed forces, one having served in Iraq.

But back to the lecture at hand, the MSM's obvious antiwar slant in its Iraq coverage.

Gerard Baker of the UK Times explains:

the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: "Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!"

... Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years.

Afghanistan has been a signal success. There has been much focus on the latest counter-offensive by the Taleban in the southeast of the country and it would be churlish to minimise the ferocity with which the terrorists are fighting, but it would be much more foolish to understate the scale of the continuing Nato achievement. Establishing a stable government for the whole nation is painstaking work, years in the making. It might never be completed. But that was not the principal objective of the war there.

Until the US-led invasion in 2001, Afghanistan was the cockpit of ascendant Islamist terrorism. Consider the bigger picture. Between 1998 and 2005 there were five big terrorist attacks against Western targets - the bombings of the US embassies in Africa in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, 9/11, and the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005. All owed their success either exclusively or largely to Afghanistan's status as a training and planning base for al-Qaeda.

In the past three years there has been no attack on anything like that scale. Al-Qaeda has been driven into a state of permanent flight. Its ability to train jihadists has been severely compromised; its financial networks have been ripped apart. Thousands of its activists and enablers have been killed. It's true that Osama bin Laden's forces have been regrouping in the border areas of Pakistan but their ability to orchestrate mass terrorism there is severely attenuated. And there are encouraging signs that Pakistanis are starting to take to the offensive against them.

Next time you hear someone say that the war in Afghanistan is an exercise in futility ask them this: do they seriously think that if the US and its allies had not ousted the Taleban and sustained an offensive against them for six years that there would have been no more terrorist attacks in the West? What characterised Islamist terrorism before the Afghan war was increasing sophistication, boldness and terrifying efficiency. What has characterised the terrorist attacks in the past few years has been their crudeness, insignificance and a faintly comical ineptitude (remember Glasgow airport?)

The second great advance in the War on Terror has been in Iraq. There's no need to recapitulate the disasters of the US-led war from the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 to his execution at the end of 2006. We may never fully make up for three and a half lost years of hubris and incompetence but in the last 18 months the change has been startling.

The "surge", despite all the doubts and derision at the time, has been a triumph of US military planning and execution. Political progress was slower in coming but is now evident too. The Iraqi leadership has shown great courage and dispatch in extirpating extremists and a growing willingness even to turn on Shia militias.

Basra is more peaceful and safer than it has been since before the British moved in. Despite setbacks such as yesterday's bombings, the streets of Iraq's cities are calmer and safer than they have been in years. Seventy companies have bid for oil contracts from the Iraqi Government. There are signs of a real political reconciliation that may reach fruition in the election later this year.

The third and perhaps most significant advance of all in the War on Terror is the discrediting of the Islamist creed and its appeal.

This was first of all evident in Iraq, where the head-hacking frenzy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates so alienated the majority of Muslims that it gave rise to the so-called Sunni Awakening that enabled the surge to be so effective.

But it has spread way beyond Iraq. As Lawrence Wright described in an important piece in The New Yorker last month, there is growing disgust not just among moderate Muslims but even among other jihadists at the extremism of the terrorists.

Deeply encouraging has been the widespread revulsion in Muslim communities in Europe - especially in Britain after the 7/7 attacks of three years ago. Some of the biggest intelligence breakthroughs in the past few years have been achieved from former al-Qaeda supporters who have turned against the movement.

There ought to be no surprise here. It's only their apologists in the Western media who really failed to see the intrinsic evil of Islamists. Those who have had to live with it have never been in much doubt about what it represents. Ask the people of Iran. Or those who fled the horrors of Afghanistan under the Taleban.

This is why we fight. Primarily, of course, to protect ourselves from the immediate threat of terrorist carnage, but also because we know that extending the embrace of a civilisation that liberates everyone makes us all safer.

Every death is an unspeakable tragedy. It's right that each time a soldier is killed in action we ask why. Was it really worth it?

The right response to the loss of brave souls such as Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first British woman to die in Afghanistan, is not an immediate call for retreat. It is, first of all, pride; a great, deep conviction that it is on such sacrifice that our own freedoms have always rested. Then, defiance. How foolish is the enemy that it might think our grief is really some prelude to their victory? Finally, confidence. We are prevailing in this struggle. We know it. And everywhere: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and among Muslims around the world, the enemy knows it too.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, media bias, Obama, Petraeus

Late last week, Gallup published its annual survey of public confidence in U.S. institutions.

At the top, with an impressive combined "great" or "a lot" approval of 71% sits the military, described since 2003 as presiding over a "failure" in Iraq.

At the bottom of the heap, displacing HMOs as our worst institution, one finds the second branch of government, our Congress, at 12%. The Gallup folks noted it is "the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question." Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, come on down! You've made history.

-- Dan Henninger

Labels: Congress, corruption, democrats, earmarks, Iraq, military, Petraeus

Every War Is a Choice
By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. and LEE A. CASEY
June 12, 2008; Page A15

Claims that the Iraq War was a reckless "war of choice" – rather than a prudent war of "necessity" – are a standard element of the anti-Bush narrative. The latest critic to make this claim is former White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

But a close look at American history shows that this distinction makes little sense. All wars are wars of choice, because it is almost always possible not to fight. The real question is whether the price of peace outweighs the costs of war.

Although the U.S. has resorted to armed force hundreds of times, it had engaged in only 10 major conflicts before 9/11, including the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War. In each instance, American leaders chose to go to war because they believed national interests were at stake. However, in only three of these conflicts was the nation's existence even arguably threatened. And, even in each of these instances, options other than war were available.

The Revolutionary War was necessary, but only if the goal was American independence. Otherwise, colonial grievances could have been compromised. In 1776, Admiral Lord Richard Howe arrived in New York Harbor with a British Army and offers of pardon for most patriot leaders. As George Washington reported to Congress, Admiral Howe had "great powers" to negotiate a settlement. Indeed, as late as 1778, the British government offered to meet all colonial demands short of independence. America's leaders, however, chose to fight on instead. By then, independence was the very point.

Likewise, the Civil War was a war of choice. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln chose to confront secession with force. The seceding states had not invaded the north, and the abolition of slavery was not – at this point – a war aim. Lincoln chose to fight because he genuinely believed in the Union's constitutional indivisibility, and that the future of democracy rested on its survival, especially on vindicating the proposition that constitutional government was impossible if part of the country could simply opt-out after losing an election. However, there would still have been a United States if the South had gone, and many serious people thought the South would prevail. Britain's William Gladstone spoke for many when he said, early in the war, that "We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States." Lincoln bet differently.

At the beginning of World War II, when Japan actually attacked Pearl Harbor, the country could nevertheless have chosen not to fight. It was perhaps politically unthinkable, but America would not have ceased to exist if it had abandoned its position as a great power in the Far East. The principal U.S. territory there – the Philippine Islands – was a colonial conquest from Spain; its other interests were economic and, of course, ideological. Was containment possible? Fortunately, Franklin Roosevelt did not explore that possibility.

Similarly, American engagement against Nazi Germany was also a matter of choice. Hitler declared war on the U.S. but had not invaded any U.S. territory. Should Roosevelt have explored a peaceful settlement and then, again, sought to contain an Axis Europe? Was his later demand for "unconditional surrender" necessary, or did it prolong the war? Some Americans – in ways eerily reminiscent of today's efforts to decouple the Iraq war from the war in Afghanistan – argued at the time that the European campaign against Hitler was a distraction from the Pacific war against Japan.

Of course, it would have been morally unacceptable, and not in the national interest, to pursue any of these opportunities for peace – but they did exist. The question then, and now, is not whether war was unavoidable, but whether force is legally and morally justified in light of the circumstances.

In 2003, President Bush chose to confront Saddam Hussein – who indisputably was hostile to the U.S., who had used weapons of mass destruction in the past, and who had given aid to terrorist groups (though not directly to Osama bin Laden). The president may well have acted on faulty intelligence – as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence now claims – but he did not ignore or suppress intelligence proving that Saddam wasn't a threat after all. Rather, he acted on available intelligence and in light of Iraq's past record.

Going to war may have been a choice others wouldn't have made. But it was no more a war of choice than any of our other wars.

-- Messrs. Rivkin and Casey, Washington attorneys, served in the Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Labels: democrats, Iraq, mcclellan, Petraeus

Even the Washington Post notices that fellow news agencies have ignored some very important and good turning points in Iraq, especially regarding the ability of Iraqis to govern themselves:

THERE'S BEEN a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington's attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now."

Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained "special groups" that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans. It is -- of course -- too early to celebrate; though now in disarray, the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr could still regroup, and Iran will almost certainly seek to stir up new violence before the U.S. and Iraqi elections this fall. Still, the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Gen. David H. Petraeus signaled one adjustment in recent testimony to Congress, saying that he would probably recommend troop reductions in the fall going beyond the ongoing pullback of the five "surge" brigades deployed last year. Gen. Petraeus pointed out that attacks in Iraq hit a four-year low in mid-May and that Iraqi forces were finally taking the lead in combat and on multiple fronts at once -- something that was inconceivable a year ago. As a result the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki now has "unparalleled" public support, as Gen. Petraeus put it, and U.S. casualties are dropping sharply. Eighteen American soldiers died in May, the lowest total of the war and an 86 percent drop from the 126 who died in May 2007.

If the positive trends continue, proponents of withdrawing most U.S. troops, such as Mr. Obama, might be able to responsibly carry out further pullouts next year. Still, the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise. That will mean tying withdrawals to the evolution of the Iraqi army and government, rather than an arbitrary timetable; Iraq's 2009 elections will be crucial. It also should mean providing enough troops and air power to continue backing up Iraqi army operations such as those in Basra and Sadr City. When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success.

Labels: Iraq, media bias, Petraeus

Great commentary by Bill McGurn.

In the media week that has been Scott McClellan, my former colleague has had his motives questioned, his character impugned, and his own book dismissed as something he could not possibly have written himself.

Yet in the midst of the storm, the press has largely skipped over what is at once Scott's central claim, and his silliest argument: that the president's big mistake was to embrace the "permanent campaign" and that this led to a strategy that meant "never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising. Especially not where Iraq was concerned."

The decisions on Iraq that followed Scott's departure tell a much different story. Whether you agree with the surge or not, that decision was one of the defining acts of his presidency. And what Scott apparently still has not recognized is that his own heave-ho was the prelude to exactly the kind of reconsideration he says was impossible in the Bush White House.

Exhibit A is the sacking of Don Rumsfeld immediately after the 2006 elections that gave the Democrats control of Congress. The "after" is critical, because the president was blasted for his timing by many in his own party. Arlen Specter complained that he would still be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee if the president had made the move before the elections. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that the president's timing probably cost Republicans control of the Senate and 10 to 15 seats in the House.

These men had a point. But the timing also said something about George W. Bush: A president who makes a decision knowing that it could cost his party control of Congress can be accused of many things, but subsuming all his decisions to the "permanent campaign" cannot seriously be one of them.

The president's decision to replace his Defense secretary was followed by an even more thorough rethink of his war policy. Anyone who has spent time in government knows that changing a major policy midstream is like trying to make a U-turn with an aircraft carrier. And anyone who was in the White House in late 2006 knows that the dramatic shift in Iraq that we now almost take for granted was the result of one man: George W. Bush.

Scott and the other critics accuse the president of stubbornness. In my experience, when the pundits accuse you of being stubborn, often all it means is that you don't accept the conventional wisdom of the Beltway establishment – and that you are unwilling to run up the white flag and bow to their superiority.

The president I served had concerns that were far removed from this audience. Constantly he would remind his speechwriting team to keep in mind how his words would be heard by others. By an enemy who believed Iraq was theirs for the taking. By Iraqi families being asked to stand up and have faith in the United States. And by some second lieutenant in some godforsaken town in Iraq about to lead other Americans into battle.

So for several intense weeks, my colleague Chris Michel and I isolated ourselves in a tiny room in the West Wing, trying to capture the new policy in a coherent draft. Early one Saturday, Dan Bartlett came by to check on our progress.

Dan is a straight shooter. He knew that the new policy risked losing the support of the few remaining hawks, because they wanted many more troops than the five brigades the president would be proposing. He also knew that most everyone else in America wanted to hear that our men and women in Iraq were coming home. Dan did not kid himself – or us – about how it would go down, at least in the short term. "No one wants to hear what this speech is going to tell them," he told us.

The president understood this too. But he also understood that the moral and strategic purposes of the U.S. demanded a president willing to stand up and do the unpopular thing – no matter what the polls or pundits were saying.

So on the evening of Jan. 10, 2007, Mr. Bush looked into the television cameras and gave the speech nobody wanted to hear. He told the American people that the central policy of his administration was not working, he took all responsibility for the mistakes, and he offered a fix that he knew many would regard with skepticism. It is hard to imagine any presidential act more removed from "the permanent campaign."

Of course, only a mind that was not completely closed to "rethinking" or "reconsidering" or "reflecting" on Iraq (or George W. Bush) could appreciate the magnitude of what the president did that January night. And as Scott more than proves, in today's Washington that kind of mind is all too rare.

Labels: Iraq, mcclellan, Petraeus, revisionist history

The allegedly lame duck Bush administration has--if this report is correct--hit a home run. CENTCOM is the central theater of the war on terror, and the president is putting our best commander in charge of it. What Odierno achieved as day-to-day commander in Iraq was amazing (see Fred and Kim Kagan's article, "The Patton of Counterinsurgency"), and he's clearly the right choice for MNFI. Bush has done the right thing, overriding opposition from within the Pentagon. He deserves congratulations--and thanks.

-- Bill Krystol commenting on reports that Gen. David Petraeus has been tapped to run US Central Command

Labels: Iraq, Petraeus

Let's 'Surge' Some More
By MICHAEL YON
April 11, 2008

It is said that generals always fight the last war. But when David Petraeus came to town it was senators – on both sides of the aisle – who battled over the Iraq war of 2004-2006. That war has little in common with the war we are fighting today.

I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.

The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about "GoArmy.com."

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.

Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.

Some people charge that we have merely "rented" the Sunni tribesmen, the former insurgents who now fight by our side. This implies that because we pay these people, their loyalty must be for sale to the highest bidder. But as Gen. Petraeus demonstrated in Nineveh province in 2003 to 2004, many of the Iraqis who filled the ranks of the Sunni insurgency from 2003 into 2007 could have been working with us all along, had we treated them intelligently and respectfully. In Nineveh in 2003, under then Maj. Gen. Petraeus's leadership, these men – many of them veterans of the Iraqi army – played a crucial role in restoring civil order. Yet due to excessive de-Baathification and the administration's attempt to marginalize powerful tribal sheiks in Anbar and other provinces – including men even Saddam dared not ignore – we transformed potential partners into dreaded enemies in less than a year.

Then al Qaeda in Iraq, which helped fund and tried to control the Sunni insurgency for its own ends, raped too many women and boys, cut off too many heads, and brought drugs into too many neighborhoods. By outraging the tribes, it gave birth to the Sunni "awakening." We – and Iraq – got a second chance. Powerful tribes in Anbar province cooperate with us now because they came to see al Qaeda for what it is – and to see Americans for what we truly are.

Soldiers everywhere are paid, and good generals know it is dangerous to mess with a soldier's money. The shoeless heroes who froze at Valley Forge were paid, and when their pay did not come they threatened to leave – and some did. Soldiers have families and will not fight for a nation that allows their families to starve. But to say that the tribes who fight with us are "rented" is perhaps as vile a slander as to say that George Washington's men would have left him if the British offered a better deal.

Equally misguided were some senators' attempts to use Gen. Petraeus's statement, that there could be no purely military solution in Iraq, to dismiss our soldiers' achievements as "merely" military. In a successful counterinsurgency it is impossible to separate military and political success. The Sunni "awakening" was not primarily a military event any more than it was "bribery." It was a political event with enormous military benefits.

The huge drop in roadside bombings is also a political success – because the bombings were political events. It is not possible to bury a tank-busting 1,500-pound bomb in a neighborhood street without the neighbors noticing. Since the military cannot watch every road during every hour of the day (that would be a purely military solution), whether the bomb kills soldiers depends on whether the neighbors warn the soldiers or cover for the terrorists. Once they mostly stood silent; today they tend to pick up their cell phones and call the Americans. Even in big "kinetic" military operations like the taking of Baqubah in June 2007, politics was crucial. Casualties were a fraction of what we expected because, block-by-block, the citizens told our guys where to find the bad guys. I was there; I saw it.

The Iraqi central government is unsatisfactory at best. But the grass-roots political progress of the past year has been extraordinary – and is directly measurable in the drop in casualties.

This leads us to the most out-of-date aspect of the Senate debate: the argument about the pace of troop withdrawals. Precisely because we have made so much political progress in the past year, rather than talking about force reduction, Congress should be figuring ways and means to increase troop levels. For all our successes, we still do not have enough troops. This makes the fight longer and more lethal for the troops who are fighting. To give one example, I just returned this week from Nineveh province, where I have spent probably eight months between 2005 to 2008, and it is clear that we remain stretched very thin from the Syrian border and through Mosul. Vast swaths of Nineveh are patrolled mostly by occasional overflights.

We know now that we can pull off a successful counterinsurgency in Iraq. We know that we are working with an increasingly willing citizenry. But counterinsurgency, like community policing, requires lots of boots on the ground. You can't do it from inside a jet or a tank.

Over the past 15 months, we have proved that we can win this war. We stand now at the moment of truth. Victory – and a democracy in the Arab world – is within our grasp. But it could yet slip away if our leaders remain transfixed by the war we almost lost, rather than focusing on the war we are winning today.

Mr. Yon is author of the just-published "Moment of Truth in Iraq" (Richard Vigilante Books). He has been reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2004.

Labels: Iraq, Petraeus

Every once in a while - okay, every one to two years - President Bush can actually hit one out of the park. Here's a great comment from his address today:

The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around -- it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror. For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al Qaeda rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaeda out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his murderous network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.
The rest of the speech is good too. The opportunity still exists, in the long run, to do with Iraq and through Iraq exactly what we set out to do with it in 2003 - overturn 60 years of promoting stability over liberty.

Of course, the problem for Bush is that he's so hated that even when he speaks reason people close their ears.

That's an advantage McCain still has for now. He's become not just the last choice for conservatives, but the only choice.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, Petraeus

Judge the surge by the decline of Moqtada al-Sadr. Great op-ed. Read the whole thing.

Whatever Happened to Moqtada?
By DAN SENOR and ROMAN MARTINEZ (WSJ)
March 20, 2008; Page A19

"I have failed to liberate Iraq, and transform its society into an Islamic society."
-- Moqtada al-Sadr, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, March 8, 2008

Moqtada al-Sadr -- the radical cleric dubbed "The Most Dangerous Man in Iraq" by a Newsweek cover story in December 2006 -- has just unilaterally extended the ceasefire he imposed on his Mahdi Army militia last summer. And on the eve of the Iraq War's fifth anniversary, Sadr also issued a somber but dramatic statement. He not only declared that he had failed to transform Iraq, but also lamented the new debates and divisions within his own movement. Explaining his marginalization, Sadr all but confessed his growing isolation: "One hand cannot clap alone."


Ismael Roldan
What happened? Over the past five years, Sadr has been one of the most persistent and insurmountable challenges for the U.S. Leveraging his family's prestige among the disaffected Shiite underclass, he asserted his power by violently intimidating rival clerics, agitating against the U.S. occupation, and using force to establish de facto control over Baghdad's Sadr City (named after his father, and home to two million Shiites on the east bank of the Tigris) and large swaths of southern Iraq.

The story of his rise, and fall, illustrates the complex relationship between security and political power that drives the fortunes of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

Sadr's postwar ascent caught the U.S. Government completely off-guard. Iraqi society was impenetrable in the 1980s and 1990s. Neither our intelligence community nor our diplomats, who had left Iraq in 1990, knew anything of significance about Sadr. The western press and punditry had never reported on him before the war (a Nexis search reveals not a single news article mentioning Sadr's name in the year leading up to the war). The oft-cited "Future of Iraq Project," produced by the State Department, failed to warn about Sadr in its thousands of pages of projections and scenarios. Few knew he existed, let alone anticipated the influence he would one day wield.

That influence was vast: Moqtada al-Sadr came very close to establishing a state within a state inside Iraq, much like Hezbollah had done in Lebanon.

It began in 2003, when Sadr's followers orchestrated the murder of Majid al-Khoie, a moderate Shiite cleric whom the U.S. government had hoped could play a pivotal role in building a democratic Iraq. It continued with a series of armed uprisings across the south in April 2004, which took the lives of scores of American troops, and led to the collapse of Iraq's fledgling security forces. These culminated in a dramatic standoff against the Iraqi government and U.S. forces at the Holy Shrines in August 2004. In 2005 and 2006 Sadr expanded his territorial reach, using his militia to expel Sunnis from their Baghdad neighborhoods and massively infiltrating the Iraqi police forces.

In areas under his control, Sadr set up extrajudicial Sharia courts to administer justice against Iraqi Shiite "heretics." Large numbers of citizens found guilty were punished by death. The Mahdi Army militia also established its own security checkpoints in Baghdad and across the south -- supplanting Iraq's weak national army and lightly deployed U.S. forces.

This militia took over petrol stations, skimming funds to finance its own operations. And it had practically halted many of the civic society initiatives launched by the coalition, NGOs, and many Iraqis in Shiite towns. For example, in 2004 our U.S. colleagues Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator, Salway Oumaishi were assassinated by Shiite militiamen, just as they had courageously helped a group of Shiite women to build a successful program to train them in advocacy for their rights.

The principal reason for Sadr's ability to augment his power during these years was the absence of security in Baghdad. This vacuum left the Shiite community completely vulnerable to an unrelenting wave of terror attacks from the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda. With the U.S. Government's failure to engage in serious counterinsurgency and make it a priority to provide basic safety for Iraqi civilians, Sadr and his Mahdi militia moved quickly to fill the void.

As one Sadrist militant told the International Crisis Group last year: "The Mahdi Army's effort to conquer neighborhoods is highly sophisticated. It presents itself as protector of Shiites and recruits local residents to assist in this task. In so doing, it gains support from people who possess considerable information -- on where the Sunnis and Shiites are, on who backs and who opposes the Sadrists and so forth." By the end of 2006, U.S. military officials had concluded that sectarian violence by Shiite militants had surpassed al Qaeda and the insurgency as the principal threat to Iraqi stability.

In retrospect, that assessment marked the high point of Sadr's influence. While his empire had expanded, it had generated its own resentments. Ordinary citizens chafed at the harsh version of Islamic law imposed by Sadr's lieutenants, not to mention the corruption and brutality of functionaries manning checkpoints and patrolling the streets. Sadr's hold on the broader Shiite community was actually quite tenuous, cemented chiefly by fear of the insurgency and al Qaeda.

In 2007, the U.S. military shifted approach, putting in place for the first time a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy backed by a surge of troops to support it. The new strategy paid large dividends against al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents, as attacks dropped to 2005 levels and Iraqi deaths due to ethno-sectarian violence declined 90% from June 2007 to March 2008. As Sunni attacks against Shiite civilians declined, so did the rationale for Sadr's authority.

As the International Crisis Group concluded, one "net effect" of the surge "was to leave the Sadrist movement increasingly exposed, more and more criticized and divided, and subject to arrest."

Other factors also contributed to Sadr's marginalization. But the increased security provided by more U.S. forces was essential in removing an underlying rationale for the Sadrist movement. Newsweek's 2006 profile had predicted that "the longer the American occupation lasts, the less popular America gets -- and the more popular Sadr and his ilk become." But as a recent ABC News poll of Iraqis makes clear, Shiite support for local militias has plummeted over the past year. The full implementation of the surge helped weaken Sadr, not make him more popular.

To be sure, Sadr's diminished capacity to stir up trouble may not last forever. While he has not appeared in public in close to a year, he still has his family name and a base of support among the Shiite underclass, particularly in Baghdad. He may be biding his time, hoping a U.S. withdrawal will leave him with a weaker opponent in the fledgling Iraqi security services. And as this week's deadly suicide bombing of a Shiite shrine in Karbala indicates, the security threats that enabled the Mahdi Army's rise to power have not yet been fully defeated.

So while the progress made against Sadr has been remarkable, it may also be fragile. Sustaining it means recognizing that political progress depends fundamentally on security. This basic insight of counterinsurgency warfare -- which has driven our progress against Sadr's militants, the Sunni insurgency, and al Qaeda over the past year -- is the central lesson America has learned in its five years of war in Iraq.

Messrs. Senor and Martinez were foreign policy advisers to the Bush administration. They were based in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.

Labels: Iraq, Petraeus

[ABC News] BAGHDAD, Feb. 14, 2008—

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.

"A big part of the effort, over the last year, has been to determine who is reconcilable, who, literally, is willing to put down his rifle and talk, who is willing to shout, instead of shoot." Petraeus said.

I spent the day with Petraeus, touring Jihad, a predominantly Shiite area in western Baghdad. This place was formerly ravaged by sectarian violence, and militiamen wreaked havoc on the streets. In the last year, U.S. and Iraqi troops moved into the neighborhood, set up joint security stations, earned the trust of local people, and found those men willing to put down their guns and work with them.

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.

"The situation in Jihad is certainly better than before," a mechanic named Ali said. "Work is constant, shops are reopening, and people are coming back to their homes."

Notwithstanding significant progress, much work clearly remains. The Iraqi government has yet to capitalize on the relative peace and improve the local infrastructure. Sewage and trash fester in the streets.

"We have very little electricity," Ali said.

The hope is, that with the passing of a budget this week, that will change.

"That unlocks a substantial amount of money for the ministries of Iraq, so that they can start going about the jobs that are so essential, like patching roads that we bounced down today; over long term, improving electricity, fixing water systems, sewer systems," Petraeus said.

Normally very guarded in his assessments of the surge, Petraeus now expresses cautious optimism.

"I have to tell you that, having been here for a number of years, this is very encouraging, actually. I mean, this is, this is potentially a big moment." he said.

Labels: Iraq, Petraeus

More egg on your face, Ms. Pelosi? Reasonable people can reasonably debate long-term worth and efforts, but to call the surge a "failure" requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Or is that defeatism just wishful thinking by the House speaker?

[UK Times] Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year's mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group's security structure suffered “total collapse”.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.

That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. “I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,” the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.

Labels: Iraq, pelosi, Petraeus

The authors of the surge (notably former Gen. Jack Keane) urge the US not to pull troops from Iraq too soon:

Iraq's parliament this month passed a new de-Baathification bill, which awaits only expected approval by the five-member presidency council before becoming law. Much remains to be done, but this is an important step toward political reconciliation -- and it further strengthens the case for America to remain committed to its crucial mission in Iraq in the months and years ahead.

During Saddam Hussein's day, if you wanted a professional job in Iraq you basically had to join the Baath Party. For most of the 1 million-plus who did so, this hardly implied direct involvement or even complicity in crimes of the state. Hussein was so paranoid that only his very inner circles were entrusted with information on the dictator's plans and policies.

Appropriately, the new legislation will punish only former Baathists who were in the three highest circles of the former regime's power structure. That probably amounts to a few thousand people. Others will generally be allowed to rejoin Iraqi society, regain their access to jobs and federal pensions where available, and avoid prosecution for previous crimes of the state. Under earlier rules, dating to edicts issued by Paul Bremer during his early weeks as Iraq's administrator in 2003, the four highest circles had been effectively ostracized. This meant tens of thousands of individuals were directly affected -- and hundreds of thousands indirectly, including family members. That precluded many of Iraq's most talented professionals and politicians from helping rebuild their nation -- and it created widespread bitterness among Sunnis, who constituted the bulk of Baathist Party members, that the current Shiite-led government would never accord them fair rights in the new Iraq.

The legislation is imperfect, of course. Most notably, the law could keep all former Baathists out of Iraq's security and legal institutions. While understandable as a way to alleviate Shiite worries about a possible Baathist-Sunni resurgence, this goes too far. Taken literally, it would interfere with efforts to bring Sunni volunteers into Iraq's security forces (unless waivers are issued). This possible problem will have to be cleared up. But if that happens, a major step will have been taken toward building sectarian trust.

The reformed de-Baathification legislation is one of half a dozen key political issues codified into American law last year by President Bush and Congress as "benchmarks" we expected Iraqi leaders to address. Other matters so identified are hydrocarbon legislation; a provincial powers act (clarifying the roles of Iraq's 18 provinces vis-a-vis the central government); a provincial election law to facilitate the next round of local elections; a process for holding a referendum on the political future of Kirkuk, the disputed northern oil city (and for compensating individual property holders and sectarian groups who lose out in such a vote); and a more transparent and trustworthy process for purging sectarian extremists from positions of government authority.

These benchmarks are reasonable goals. It is regrettable that insufficient progress has been made on the others (with the exception of the long, slow progress of purging extremists from official positions). What really matters, however, is that Iraqis come to view themselves as a single people working together to build a new nation, and address their inevitable differences legislatively rather than violently. As such, to the extent that benchmarks are employed, we would advocate using a longer list -- and include Baghdad's sharing of oil revenue with the provinces, the hiring of Sunni volunteers into the security forces and into the civilian arms of government, improvements in the legal and penal systems, and, over time, reform of the electoral system to weaken the role of the sectarian parties. In all but the last of these considerable progress has been made in the past year.

This political progress resulted from a year's worth of substantial effort to reduce violence in Iraq. Proponents of the surge always said that getting violence under control was an essential prerequisite to reconciliation, not the other way around. The full surge has been in place and operating for just over six months, and already violence has fallen dramatically across the country. The achievement in such a short time of significant legislation that requires all sides to accept risk and compromise with people they had been fighting only a few months ago is remarkable. It would have been unattainable without the change in strategy and addition of American forces that helped bring the violence down.

The progress of the past year also required American political pressure. The ongoing engagement of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Gen. David Petraeus and others in cajoling and compelling Iraqi political leaders into making compromises across sectarian lines has been crucial -- not only in passing the reformed de-Baathification law but in purging Shiite extremists from government and persuading Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to gradually, if begrudgingly, hire Sunni volunteers into the security forces. American politicians of both parties have sometimes applied useful pressure too -- when they have made clear that they are focused on Iraq, that they are determined to insist that Iraqi leaders behave responsibly, and that the United States will not underwrite sectarian violence or oppression. But they have acted harmfully when threatening to withdraw U.S. forces rapidly, without regard to conditions, without regard to whether Iraqi leaders are trying to make compromises across sectarian lines.

As Crocker said last spring, "The longer and louder the debate gets, the more danger there is that Iraqis will conclude that we are going," leading to "a hardening of attitudes" among sectarian factions." Iraq's institutions are too weak, and its sectarian wounds still too raw, for us to expect the gains of the past year to endure in the face of a quick and nearly complete American withdrawal.

The number of American forces in Iraq matters. Although the change of U.S. strategy announced last January and the change in attitude among Sunni Arabs were critical to the successes achieved in 2007, the addition of five Army combat brigades and three Marine battalions was also critical. Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno know the strains the surge has placed on the military and believe that we can reduce our forces to pre-surge levels by this summer without compromising our gains. Considering the big steps taken by Iraqi security forces over the past year, as well as the tremendous damage our forces and Iraqi forces, together with the Iraqi people, have done to al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni Baathist insurgency, Iranian-backed special groups and the fighting elements of the Jaish al-Mahdi, this belief is probably justified. But we cannot be sure.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is working hard to regroup, and our soldiers are fighting hard to prevent that. Activities of Iranian-backed special groups continue to be worrisome. And much remains to be done politically at the local and national levels to secure the gains we have made.

Some in Washington are already calling for a commitment to additional reductions, resulting in force levels below pre-surge levels, even before we have finished the current drawdown. Such calls are unwise. America has made this mistake in Iraq before -- withdrawing too soon, attempting to hand security responsibilities over to Iraqi forces unable to accept them, and assuming that the best-case scenarios will play out. We must not make that mistake again. It is inappropriate to try to evaluate the possibility of reductions beyond pre-surge levels before we have had time to examine the situation after the completion of that drawdown. Therefore, Congress, the president and the American people should not expect Petraeus to report in March on the feasibility of still further reductions but, rather, on the sustainability of the reductions already in progress.

The strain on the U.S. military is great, and we are all concerned. But sustaining 15 brigades in Iraq for six more months or another year will not break the force. Reducing forces in Iraq too rapidly, however, even by one or two brigades, might seriously jeopardize the tenuous success we are seeing. We should not take that risk.

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Retired Gen. Jack Keane was vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army from 1999 to 2003. Michael O'Hanlon is a senior scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Labels: Congress, Iraq, Petraeus

I liked this commentary by Erik Swabb, a Marine who served in Iraq. A common misnomer about the surge regards numbers; that is, people like to promote the idea that we invaded with too few troops and that the surge by General Petraeus worked because we simply added more boots on the ground.

Democratic candidates for president, for instance, cite General Eric Shinseki's pre-war (mis)estimate that several hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed in Iraq. The notion is totally misleading, as what Petraeus did he did with just 40,000. How one gets 300,000+ from about 160,000 is beyond me.

Swabb's commentary makes that clear: the surge and our remarkable success in Iraq in 2007 was less to do with numbers than strategy. It's what Petraeus did with those troops -- how we fought, not how many we fought with -- that mattered.

The blunders of the early years are well-known. Trained for conventional warfare, the Army and Marine Corps were unprepared for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Commanders emphasized killing or capturing insurgents, not securing the population as counterinsurgency doctrine emphasizes. U.S. units were stationed on large bases and didn't develop the critical relationships with local leaders that only come from living among the people.

When units did interact with Iraqis, the interaction ranged from fruitless patrols in Humvees zipping through town to draconian operations that detained scores of innocent people. The Sunni insurgency only grew in this environment, attracting al Qaeda and spurring the growth of Shiite militias.

After a costly learning process, the military increasingly "gets it" when it comes to irregular warfare. The Army and Marine Corps published a new counterinsurgency manual that legitimized the radically different strategy that the Iraq War required. Pre-deployment training now includes realistic scenarios that test units' ability to build relationships with local leaders and partner with host-nation forces.

Commanders, from the small-unit level to the general ranks, increasingly understand that population security, political reconciliation and economic development create legitimate government, which saps insurgents' strength. As a result, conventional forces are now performing counterinsurgency missions at a level that many experts thought impossible.

My old unit returned from Iraq last spring after serving in a city in Anbar Province. As a mechanized reconnaissance company, its traditional mission focused on scouting for Soviet-style armored forces. The unit's performance in Iraq more closely resembled that of the Green Berets.

Soon after occupying its forward outpost, the company met heavy insurgent attacks. But it did not over-react with mass detentions and other alienating tactics.

Instead, the Marines took a patient approach to win the support of the population and eject the extremists hiding among them. They partnered with Iraqi police, established a pervasive security presence throughout the city, and worked with local leaders to improve basic services, governance and the economy. Such tactics used to be rare, but are now increasingly the norm, thanks to Gen. David Petraeus's dogged emphasis on seeing counterinsurgency conducted by all units.

The Sunni tribal uprising that's driven al Qaeda from Anbar Province and Baghdad wouldn't have occurred without U.S. forces grasping the complexities of irregular warfare. Iraqi Sunnis rejected the oppressive version of Islam that al Qaeda imposed -- but feared the consequences of resisting. By showing a willingness to help, U.S. troops presented a more trustworthy and less-threatening partner than al Qaeda, a remarkable achievement considering the vast religious and cultural differences between Americans and Iraqis.

U.S. commanders reached agreements with tribal leaders to accept their members into local security forces and establish combat outposts among the populace. Knowing that their families were safe from reprisals, the tribes gained the confidence to go after al Qaeda. Now U.S. officials are considering whether to adopt a similar model for Pakistan's Northwest Frontier.

It remains to be seen whether the new counterinsurgency strategy will lead to a peaceful, democratic Iraq. Success ultimately depends on the ability of Sunnis and Shiites to overcome decades of mistrust and antagonism. But the current approach has created an opportunity for political reconciliation, as Sunnis have demonstrated that they reject al Qaeda's campaign of terror against Shiites. The new strategy is also helping to prevent the establishment of an al-Qaeda safe haven in Iraq -- and in this sense, it has already proven its worth.

The strains on the military are real. However, overemphasis on the "eroding" capabilities of the armed forces belies the incredible emergence of an irregular warfare capacity in the world's greatest conventional military.

This hard-fought transformation faces resistance from advocates of the status quo in the military, and thus is easily reversible without political support. Such support is something Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on.

Labels: Iraq, military, Petraeus

Labels: 2008, democrats, Iraq, Obama, Petraeus

The Petraeus surge, and its successful execution.

[Michelle Malkin:] There's a reason the magazine and newspaper editors are naming everything but the surge as their top story of the year. (Putin? The Virginia Tech massacre? Come on.) Good news in the War on Terror is bad news for those rooting for failure.

Far easier to play up casualties and sectarian strife, sensationalize accusations of atrocities and demonize the men and women in uniform to indulge Bush Derangement Syndrome. Washington Post staffer and NBC military analyst William Arkin did just that on Jan. 30 when he lambasted troops for enjoying "obscene amenities" and serving as a "mercenary" force.

One of the troops Arkin considers a "mercenary" was Army 2nd Lt. Mark J. Daily. On Jan. 19, a reader e-mailed me that the 23-year-old standout soldier had been killed in an IED attack in Mosul along with three other comrades. To MoveOn and Democrat leaders and the anti-surge press, he's just another number. Another "victim." Another pawn. But on his MySpace site and across the Internet, his immortal words resonate:

"Some have allowed their resentment of the president to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda and elsewhere. I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined."

He declared simply: "I genuinely believe the United States Army is a force of good in this world."

It's the legacy 2Lt. Daily left on this world - and the legacy that defined 2007 against all political and media odds.

Labels: heroes, Iraq, media bias, Petraeus

Time ludicrously chose to make Russia's ex-KGB agent-turned president Vladimir Putin its cover boy. They just couldn't make [General David] Petraeus man--oops--person of the year. Our liberal elites are so invested in a narrative of defeat and disaster in Iraq that to acknowledge the prospect of victory would be too head-wrenching and heart-rending. It would mean giving credit to George W. Bush, for one. And it would mean acknowledging American success in a war Time, and the Democratic party, and the liberal elites, had proclaimed lost.

The editors couldn't acknowledge their mugging by reality. That's fine. Nonetheless, reality exists. And the reality is that in Iraq, after mistakes and failures, thanks to the leadership of Bush, Petraeus, and General Ray Odierno--the day-to-day commander whose contributions shouldn't be overlooked--we are winning.

The reality is also this: The counterinsurgency campaign that Petraeus and Odierno conceived and executed in 2007 was as comprehensive a counterinsurgency strategy as has ever been executed. The heart of the strategy was a brilliant series of coordinated military operations throughout the entire theater. Petraeus and Odierno used conventional U.S. forces, Iraqi military and police, and Iraqi and U.S. Special Operations forces to strike enemy strongholds throughout Iraq simultaneously, while also working to protect the local populations from enemy responses. Successive operations across the theater knocked the enemy--both al Qaeda and Sunni militias, and Shia extremists--off balance and then prevented them from recovering. U.S. and Iraqi forces, supported by local citizens, chased the enemy from area to area, never allowing them the breathing space to reestablish safe havens, much less new bases. It wasn't "whack-a-mole" or "squeezing the water balloon" as some feared (and initially claimed)--it was the relentless pursuit of an increasingly defeated enemy.

That defeat has implications far beyond Iraq. In 2007, Iraq's Sunni Arabs fought with us against al Qaeda, and Iraq's Shia Arabs joined with us to fight Iranian-backed Shia militias. So much for the notion that Americans were doomed to fail in their efforts to mobilize moderate Muslims against jihadists. The progress in Iraq in 2007 represents a strategic breakthrough for the broader Middle East whose importance would be hard to overstate.

One additional point: Petraeus's counterinsurgency stands out not just for its conceptual ambition and the skill of its execution but for its humanity. There were those who argued that the U.S. military could not succeed in counterinsurgency because Americans were not tough and bloodthirsty enough. They said that brutality was essential in subduing insurgents and our humanity would be our downfall.

They were wrong. The counterinsurgency campaign of 2007 was probably the most precise, discriminate, and humane military operation ever undertaken on such a scale. Our soldiers and Marines worked hard--and took risks and even casualties--to ensure, as much as possible, that they hurt only enemies. Compared with any previous military operations of this size, they were astonishingly successful. The measure of their success lies in the fact that so many Iraqis now see American troops as friends and protectors. Petraeus and his generals have shown that Americans can fight insurgencies and win--and still be Americans. For that and so much else, he is the man of the year.
-- Bill Kristol

Labels: Iraq, media bias, Petraeus

"Just returned from the Syria border back to Mosul. It would take a conspiracy to hide the progress in Iraq."
-- Michael Yon, embedded reporter

Indeed, even John "smear the troops" Murtha agrees.

Also of interest... the word "Iraq" or "Baghdad" doesn't appear one time in the latest Osama bin Laden audiotape.

Labels: Iraq, media bias, Murtha, Petraeus, Yon