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This today from the AP as the initial drawdown of the surge commences:
The first big test of security gains linked to the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq is at hand. The military has started to reverse the 30,000-strong troop increase and commanders are hoping the drop in insurgent and sectarian violence in recent months — achieved at the cost of hundreds of lives — won't prove fleeting.
The current total of 20 combat brigades is shrinking to 19 as the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, operating in volatile Diyala province, leaves. The U.S. command in Baghdad announced on Saturday that the brigade had begun heading home to Fort Hood, Texas, and that its battle space will be taken by another brigade already operating in Iraq.
Between January and July — on a schedule not yet made public — the force is to shrink further to 15 brigades. The total number of U.S. troops will likely go from 167,000 now to 140,000-145,000 by July, six months before President Bush leaves office and a new commander in chief enters the White House.
. . . Brig. Gen. Stephen Gledhill, the second-in-command for training Iraqi forces, says he is confident that conditions have improved to the point where the Iraqis are capable of filling any U.S. gaps.
"Our answer is that they not only will be able to — they already are, and will continue to do so as they gain experience, capabilities and capacity, and not only here in Baghdad but all around the country," Gledhill said in an e-mail.
Counting on the Iraqis to take over security was at the center of the U.S. strategy before Petraeus took over in February for Gen. George Casey. In a change of emphasis, Petraeus put a higher priority on securing the Baghdad population while continuing to develop Iraqi security forces.
Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that U.S. officers are mindful of the consequences of withdrawing forces prematurely.
"That's the great risk, is if you do this too quickly that you could place a burden on the Iraqi security forces prior to them being ready to accept it," Ham said. He gave no indication that the military was reconsidering the decision, approved by Bush in September, to reduce by five brigades.
The commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil of the 1st Cavalry Division, told reporters Nov. 6 that it was too early to declare victory over al-Qaida in Iraq, the mainly Iraqi terrorist organization that has been a chief target of U.S. offensive operations in recent months.
But Fil said it was now clear that U.S. forces, with Iraqi help, have gained the upper hand in Baghdad.
"Perhaps even most significantly, the Iraqi people have just decided they've had it up to here with violence," he said, echoing the assertion of numerous other commanders that one of the most important developments since early summer has been an erosion of what some call a culture of fear in Baghdad.
Read the whole story here. All of this is occurring against a background of significant improvements in Iraq of which even the BBC has taken note.
Over the past three months, there has been a sharp and sustained drop in all forms of violence. The figures for dead and wounded, military and civilian, have also greatly improved.
All across Baghdad, which has seen the worst of the violence, streets are springing back to life. Shops and restaurants which closed down are back in business.
People walk in crowded streets in the evening, when just a few months ago they would have been huddled behind locked doors in their homes.
Everybody agrees that things are much better.
. . . In the past few days, two events have underlined big changes that have happened in recent months on both the Sunni and Shia sides of the Iraqi equation.
On Thursday, in a crowded public hall in the mainly Shia city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, the local police chief, Brig-Gen Ra'id Shaker Jawdat, bitterly denounced the Mehdi Army militia, accusing it of presiding over a four-year reign of terror there.
It was an extraordinary occasion. One by one, men and women stood up and screamed abuse at the militia, blaming it for killing and torturing their loved ones.
It could not have happened a few months ago, when the Mehdi Army - the military wing of the movement headed by the militant young Shia cleric, Moqtada Sadr - was the real power in the streets of Karbala.
A few days later, Moqtada Sadr ordered his followers to halt all forms of military action nationwide, even in self-defence.
That was a turning-point in Baghdad too. The number of bodies being found daily, dumped randomly in the city after being abducted, tortured and killed in sectarian reprisals, dropped from dozens a day to less than a handful.
. . . Now, starting with the western al-Anbar province and spreading east to Baghdad and mainly Sunni areas to the north, there has been a gathering trend whereby Sunni tribes and nationalist groups have turned against al-Qaeda as their primary enemy.
The Americans have seized on the tactic, encouraging tribal and other Sunnis to form regional associations, such as al-Sahwa (The Awakening), as a vehicle for getting government and coalition support.
In the provinces, tribesmen joining up are paid $600 a month to protect their own areas against al-Qaeda.
The trend has spread deep into mainly Sunni districts of Baghdad, where al-Sahwa has filled the gap left by al-Qaeda.
American forces have recruited thousands of young men, who are given uniforms and $300 a month to act as neighbourhood guards (known in US military jargon as Concerned Local Citizens, or CLCs).
They apply in droves, as there are no other jobs in town.
US forces have moved into virtually every area and set up fixed positions. They have local mobile phone numbers emblazoned on their vehicles for the CLCs to call if they run into trouble.
This, combined with the way in which the US troop surge has proactively tackled any al-Qaeda presence it can detect, has dealt a massive blow to the Sunni militants.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, is now openly claiming victory against al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
US military leaders are more cautious.
"There is no part of Baghdad in which al-Qaeda has a stronghold any more," said Brig-Gen Joseph Fil, commander of the Multinational Forces in Baghdad.
"But Baghdad is a dangerous place. Al-Qaeda, although on the ropes, is not finished by any means. They could come back swinging if they're allowed to, in fact, we've seen it," he added.
But there is no doubt that it has lost out massively in Baghdad.
One resident of the mainly-Sunni area of Dora, in the south of the capital, summed it up.
"The Islamic State in Iraq (the umbrella name adopted by al-Qaeda groups) used to control most of the area like a phantom presence. I know Shia shopkeepers who were shot dead in their shops." "They put up notices warning people to wear strict Islamic dress. Everybody was frightened. When we called the police to report bodies on the street, they said it was a no-go area and they couldn't come."
"Now, the Islamic State elements have disappeared. Shops have reopened. My daughter can walk to school without wearing a headscarf. Some Shias who fled have come back. And most important of all, we haven't heard of anybody being killed since July."
The setback dealt to al-Qaeda and affiliates has had a knock-on effect in the Shia communities too.
The often massive, indiscriminate bomb attacks for which they were blamed, and which used to hit Shia areas on a daily basis, have now become a rarity.
The huge drop in bomb attacks has removed one of the main raisons d'etre for the Mehdi Army, the most active Shia militia in Baghdad.
Since neither the state nor the coalition forces had been able to stop the bomb attacks before, the Mehdi Army could pose as the only saviour of the Shias from slaughter at the hands of fanatical Sunni extremists.
"They were on the streets every day, with guns, controlling and checking people," said a Shia resident. "When there were attacks on Shia shrines, such as Samarra last year, they killed many Sunnis in the area in revenge."
"Now, they are much weaker. Many of the leaders have been arrested or killed by the Americans. Others have fled. Some are still around, but they are keeping a low profile."
The US military admit that around 13% of Baghdad - mainly parts of the huge eastern Shia suburbs, Sadr City, where the Mehdi Army used to hold undisputed sway - remain to be brought fully under control.
But the decision by Moqtada Sadr to order a freeze on militia action has removed political cover from Shia militants who resist, and who are now regarded as "rogue elements".
"When we go to the [Shia-dominated] Iraqi government with lists of militia leaders we want to get, they're very supportive," said Baghdad coalition forces commander Gen Fil.
One problem is that the Americans and the Iraqi government cannot use the al-Sahwa ploy of recruiting local youths in Shia areas to mount guard against the Mehdi Army. It simply would not work.
Unlike al-Qaeda's situation in the Sunni areas, Shia leaders such as Moqtada al-Sadr enjoy considerable popular support among the Shia, even if elements of the militia have got well out of hand.
Some residents of Shia neighbourhoods are optimistic that another six months of sustained effort might see the militias off for good. Others are not so sure. . . .
Read the entire story here.
Meanwhile, Pelosi and Murtha are still talking about legislating a withdrawal so this can be seen as a defeat for America - but a victory for Democrats. What do our national security interests matter when measured against Democrats and their desire for partisan political power? Read this report in the Politico and you how to wonder just how much these people have lost the plot. They talk about having "missed their chance" to end the war before we could succeed, with no thought being given to the ramifications of defeat.
While one could certainly argue whether or not to engage in Iraq, that is an argument that should have been consigned to history professors the day hostilities began in 2003. The only argument since should have been about how to succeed in Iraq.
Success in Iraq is a free and democratic country that will allow its citizens freedom of speech and give them a stake in the government. Such would serve as a beacon in the Middle East that has to date seen nothing but police states or their antecedents. And it is in such governments that the poisons of Khomeinist Shia'ism and the Wahhabism of al Qaeda have flourished.
How important is that in the fight against terrorism? Fausta's Blog today contains the answer, quoting from the work of Alan Kruger:
[T]he available evidence is nearly unanimous in rejecting either material deprivation or inadequate educaÂtion as important causes of support for terrorism or participation in terrorist activities. Such explanations have been embraced almost entirely on faith, not scientific evidence.
. . . One set of factors that I examined did consistently raise the likelihood that people from a given country will participate in terrorism, namely, the suppression of civil liberties and political rights, including freedom of the press, the freedom to assemble, and democratic rights. Using data from the Freedom House Index, for example, I found that countries with low levels of civil liberties are more likely to be the countries of origin of the perpetraÂtors of terrorist attacks. In addition, terrorists tend to attack nearby targets. Even international terrorÂism tends to be motivated by local concerns.
Additional support for these conclusions comes from research I conducted on the nationalities of foreign insurgents in Iraq. Specifically, I studied 311 combatants, representing 27 countries, who were captured in Iraq. Although the vast majority of insurgents are native Iraqis, motivated by domestic issues, foreigners are alleged to have been involved in several significant attacks. I looked at the charÂacteristics of the countries insurgents came from, and, importantly, of the countries with no citizens captured in Iraq. It turned out that countries with a higher GDP per capita were actually more likely to have their citizens involved in the insurgency than were poorer countries.
Consistent with the work on international terrorist incidents, countries with fewer civil libÂerties and political rights were more likely to be the birthplaces of foreign insurgents. . .
Read the entire post here. That is why success in Iraq is so important. And it is why failure in Iraq would have existential ramifications for decades to come.
All of that said, neither success in Iraq nor the long term security interests of this country are ever mentioned by any of the Democratic leadership or Presidential candidates. Their embrace of defeat and pacificsm in the face of aggression is suicidal. There is a reason for the old adage, "polictics ends at the water's edge." I have voted for liberals before, and certain ones, such as Daniel Moynahan, I would have voted for against any opposition. Joe Lieberman aside, I cannot think of a single Democrat in the federal government today that I could possibly support. None are liberals in the classic sense. God help us if this current crop neo-liberals succeed in gaining the full reins of power.
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