Iraq Military & Security Roundup

Security continues to improve throughout Iraq. Even a turkey stuffed Murtha can see it. Bill Rogio provides a good overview of operations. Black Five and CENTCOM have individual engagement reports. DOD has some very positive news about Iraq unit effectiveness and improvements in their intelligence capability. And Michael Yon has up the third in his his riveting report from his embed with British forces:

Security continues to improve in Iraq, as reported by the NYT:

Recent American military data indicates that for the fourth week in a row, the nationwide weekly number of attacks is at its lowest level since January 2006. The number of civilians killed, as measured by the American and Iraqi governments, continued to decline in November. The number of weekly casualties, wounded as well as killed, suffered by Iraqi civilians, Iraqi forces and American forces, increased last week by 56 percent but was still below the level for most of 2006 and 2007.

Apparently, even Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa) can see it. He just returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Iraq and proclaimed "I think the 'surge' is working." I am amazed. Meanwhile, Blackfive is pondering the ingredients in Murtha’s Thanksgiving meal

Bill Rogio at the Long War Journal describes the major operations being conducted:

As al Qaeda in Iraq attempts to re-establish its networks in the Northern provinces, the Iraqi military and Multinational Forces Iraq have been shaping the battlefield in the north for a showdown with the terror group. Iraqi and US forces received a big boost the past week when a significant number of Iraqis formed a Concerned Local Citizens group in the region. Meanwhile, the Islamic Army of Iraq in Mosul has vowed to dig in and fight the Coalition.

Read the entire post.

Blackfive has the story of a successful night air assault northeast of Baghdad

Centcom has daily news releases on the result of operations over the past week:

Coalition forces detained 12 suspects during operations Thursday targeting al-Qaeda operations in central and northern Iraq.

Coalition forces detained 12 suspects, including two local leaders of al Qaeda, Tuesday and Wednesday during operations targeting al-Qaeda networks in central and northern Iraq.

During operations north of Bayji, Iraq, Coalition forces observed several individuals begin to maneuver in and around the area reported to be a logistical sanctuary and safe haven where terrorists allegedly plan and coordinate attacks. Perceiving hostile intent, the ground force called for supporting aircraft to engage, killing two terrorists.

Iraqi Forces, advised by U.S. Special Forces, detained one suspected al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist commander and two suspected extremists, as well as uncovered 18 improvised explosive devices during three separate operations Nov. 25 targeting criminal groups within Iraq. The Habbaniyah Special Weapons and Tactics team, along with U.S. Special Forces, conducted a raid west of Baghdad specifically targeting an AQI commander. The individual is reported to be responsible for murder and intimidation campaigns against Iraqi Police and their families in Saqlawiyah, and multiple improvised explosive device attacks against Iraqi and Coalition Forces.

DOD is reporting signficant increases in Iraqi unit effectiveness:

Iraqi security forces have taken “huge steps forward” in growing and moving toward independent operations, a senior commander in Iraq said today.

And they’ve made this progress despite fighting a war on their own soil and working through an immature bureaucracy, said British Army Brigadier S. M. Gledhill, deputy commanding general for the Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq. The command is charged with helping the Iraqis to organize, man and equip their force and to develop the ministries of Defense and Interior.

“Fundamentally, Iraqis are now taking ownership of the battle space themselves. I think this is an extremely positive move and it really demonstrates their capability,” Gledhill said to a group of Internet journalists and “bloggers” in a conference call.

“An increasing number are moving into the leading role, and I have every confidence that over the next 12 months Iraqi battalions and brigades will increasingly take the lead in the battle space,” he said.

In the past year, the Iraqi security forces have rocketed to nearly a half million, including both the police and army. The 158,000-member armed forces are expected to grow to 190,000. The police forces number more than 300,000, Gledhill said. A year ago, the police forces numbered less than 200,000, and the armed forces were about 135,000 strong.

Between the army and national police, 191 Iraqi battalions are in the fight, with more than half operating without coalition force support, he said. . . .

Read the entire article. And in a related story, the Iraqi intelligence cycle - gathering, processing and coordinating targets - is now producing results on par with U.S. forces.

And last but not least, do read Michael Yon’s Men of Valor Part III. Its riveting.

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"We Shall Surrender In The Fields and in the Streets; We Shall Surrender In the Hills . . ."

That is the voice of our Democratic leadership channelling Churchill and the famous speech he gave to rally his country during the dark days that followed the 1940 British retreat from Dunkirk. Doesn't it make one proud to see our Democrats, refusing to concede against all odds, determined to achieve their version of "victory" at any cost. That is in the true spirit of Churchill.

Well, perhaps not the true spirit. There are a few minor differences between the spirit of Churchill and the things that animate our quartet of Murtha, Pelosi, Reid, and Obey of course - principles, ethics, intellectual honesty, a sense of reality and loyalty to country to name but a few.

And those differences were very much on display yesterday. If you did not see it, Congressional Democrats Jack Murtha and David Obey appeared at a news conference. The Washington Times has the report:

House Democrats' point man in the war-funding showdown with the White House today dismissed U.S. military gains in Iraq and vowed to tighten the purse strings until President Bush accepts a pullout plan.

"Look at all the people that have been displaced, all the [lost] oil production, unemployment, all those type of things," said Rep. John P. Murtha, chairman of House Appropriations defense subcommittee. "We can't win militarily

The Pennsylvania Democrat conceded violence was down dramatically and some normalcy was restored on Iraq's streets, but he said U.S. victory remains unattainable as long as Baghdad fails to pass national-reconciliation laws

"To change the political law, it doesn't seem to me you need the military stability," Mr. Murtha told reporters on Capitol Hill.

The non-sequiter of that last statement is near breathtaking, is it not? Murtha is saying that stability is unnecessary for Iraq to progress from this point. This man is such an idiotic menace, one has to, in the words of Hillary, "suspend disbelief" when listening to him. Likewise is his refusal to acknowledge the grass roots progress by Iraqis towards reconcilliation that has made this period of peace possible. And indeed, Murtha must willfully ignore it as, for all practical purposes, that grass roots progress largely renders moot the benchmarks upon which Murtha hangs his hopes for legislating surrender. Long gone are the days when he and all his colleagues were able to justify their clarion call to surrender on the assertion that Iraq was in a state of civil war.

Actually, my favorite part of the news conference was when Murtha dismissed the pax Americana now descending on Iraq as a "lull" in hostilities. I believe it was Mort Kondracke that commented to the effect that "yes, its a lull in the fighting, just like there was a lull in the fighting after Sherman burned Atlanta." And Krauthammer pointed out that it is not like this "lull" is the result of al Qaeda having gone on a short vacation.

It is not hard to read between the lines here. The Democratic leadership's refusal to fund the Iraq War and their determination to continue treating it as a lost cause is a desparate bid to buy time in the hopes that something major will go wrong in Iraq between now and the end of January, when military funding runs out. They bet the farm on defeat in Iraq, with the high water mark of their charge being Harry Reid’s declaration of defeat and capitulation in response to four suicide bombings by al Qaeda in April. Now, rather than do the right thing in response to changed circumstance, they have chosen to double down their wager on defeat. Their perfidy is despicable - and criminal. How many lives are they willing to sacrifice for political power?

Imagine for a second the ramifications to our national security that would emenate from a legislated defeat in January, even as America has brought a significant measure of peace to Iraq and, in so doing, largely destroyed the radical Islamists of al Qaeda. Indeed, al Qaeda has been beaten to the point that Osama bin Laden was himself moved to declare, just two weeks ago, that the "the darkeness" in Iraq has become "pitch black."

If we left Iraq now, forced to withdraw by legislation, the radical Islamists would certainly claim it as a victory that would take on mythical proportions. Never forget that it was the belief that Islam had defeated the "super power" of the Soviet Union that drove the growth of radical Islam through the 1980's and 90's. Now with their defeat assured on the ground, to be granted a victory over the American super power could only come - as the story will go - from the direct intervention of Allah. God help us all if that occurs. Radical Islam will take on a new life not heretofore imagined. And, as the world's premier Orientalist, Bernard Lewis has stated, speaking of the immeasurable consequences of a withdraw from Iraq last year - before we had largely destroyed al Qaeda - "the consequences--both for Islam and for America--will be deep, wide and lasting."

At any rate, the two front war against the mortal enemies of our nation continues. And its most dangerous enemies are inside of our borders.

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Temp Plummets in Hell As the NYT Lead Story Documents Progress In Iraq

Hell must be positively icy at the moment. The NYT has as their lead a story that goes to lengths to document what all but NYT and a few other followers of the MSM have known for some time now. The surge has worked to significantly pacify Iraq. And the large exhale we hear from Baghdad, courtesy of the NYT, is, if you listen close, likely to be followed by an equally large inhale from the collective members of the Democrat Party who are still intent on legislating defeat in Iraq:

Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves

Five months ago, Suhaila al-Aasan lived in an oxygen tank factory with her husband and two sons, convinced that they would never go back to their apartment in Dora, a middle-class neighborhood in southern Baghdad.

Today she is home again, cooking by a sunlit window, sleeping beneath her favorite wedding picture. And yet, she and her family are remarkably alone. The half-dozen other apartments in her building echo with emptiness and, on most days, Iraqi soldiers are the only neighbors she sees.

“I feel happy,” she said, standing in her bedroom, between a flowered bedspread and a bullet hole in the wall. “But my happiness is not complete. We need more people to come back. We need more people to feel safe.”

Mrs. Aasan, 45, a Shiite librarian with an easy laugh, is living at the far end of Baghdad’s tentative recovery. She is one of many Iraqis who in recent weeks have begun to test where they can go and what they can do when fear no longer controls their every move.

The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says. . .

Read the story here. There are plenty of "buts" and "ifs" thrown in - this is the NYT after all. And in all fairness to the NYT, there should be a few "buts" and "ifs." We have taken a huge step towards stabilizing Iraq, but there is a long way to go. Still, for the NYT to go this far in acknowledging success is going to be very problematic for Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, and company. This is the time for as big a push as possible in terms of diplomacy and aid. The Republicans should be taking the lead - and taking the Democrats to task for continuing to legislate defeat rather than working to capitalize on the vastly improved security situation.

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Interesting News From Around The Net

The Boston Globe notes that the Democrats in Washington are feeding heavilly at the trough, with Jack Murtha being the biggest hog. The Republicans are only a little better, unfortunately. For my part, I think if our House and Senate Republican leadership had any guts they would try and clean up the party. It needs it desperately.

And in a related story, "During his first six years in the White House, [Bush] never met a pork-stuffed spending bill he didn't like -- or dislike enough to veto. But now that he's seen the light on federal spending, Democrats in Congress are giving him plenty of opportunities to make amends for his wasteful ways.

Is North Korea finally going Chinese? Der Spiegel is reporting on a North Korean experiment in capitalism.

Even Der Spiegel can see what the NY Times and Congressional Democrats cannot - that Iraq has turned around and that, much to their consternation, Bush is anything but a lame duck.

Islamists like the dark and want no examination of their Wahhabi religion. They are often aided in that quest by useful idiots in the West who are lulled into support or tolerance out of sheer ignorance. But sometimes the Islamists strike paydirt in such people as London's Mayor Red Ken, who aggressively and suicidally embraces the Islamists, defending them against any criticism.

Channel 4 in Britain has finally been cleared following an investigation demanded by Islamists into their expose, Undercover Mosque. If you have not seen it yet - watch it. As I said, Islamists do not want the light of day shined on their religion. If everyone understood what was going on in the Wahhabi Mosques, there would be a lot more concern, though no Islamaphobia. A phobia is an unjustified fear. There is a world of justification for being concerned with Wahhabi Islam.

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The MSM Finds Reality & Prints Positive News On Iraq

First up is this from the editorial pages of the Washington Post - sure to have Harry Reid and company choking on their cornflakes. It is both an honest assessment of Iraq, President Bush and our own Congressional Democrats:

THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the "surge" of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success. By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself. Credit for these achievements belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite.

. . . On Wednesday, House Democrats passed an Iraq spending bill that would have required Gen. Petraeus to abort his successful strategy, limit operations to counterterrorism and training, and withdraw all troops by the end of next year. Democratic leaders acted as if nothing has changed in Iraq since January. Perhaps the most charitable interpretation of their initiative is that they knew it would never survive scrutiny by the Senate, which promptly killed it. . . .

Read the article here. The part not quoted goes on to say that there is a narrow window to capitalize on this reality on the ground in Iraq and that much more needs to be done diplomatically. I could not agree more. Bush as well as the Democrats need to really push now. The military has performed, as always, exceptionally well.

It will be a cold day in hell - or the day their stock price falls below a dollar a share - before you see something similar stated in the editorial pages of the New York Times. Their article today credits Iran for a portion of the declining violence. I will withold judgment on that particular theory. But the Times does go on to tell of the efforts Maliki is making to open the government up to the Sunnis and to end the de-Ba'athification process. That certainly is important, and when that happens, the very last of Democratic talking points will fall by the wayside.

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Baghdad Harry Reid Joins Pelosi & Murtha in Call To Legislate Defeat In Iraq

With news out of Iraq - though not found in the MSM - getting better and better each day, the neo-liberal left still refuse to loosen their embrace of surrender and the narrative of defeat. Last week it was Spearker Pelosi & Rep. Murtha threatening not to fund the war unless a date certain was set for withdrawal and the complete end to all combat operations in Iraq. Enter Sen. Majority Ldr Harry Reid, continuing his impression of Baghdad Bob, a role he first auditioned for in April when he declared that the U.S. military had been defeated in Iraq as a result of four suicide bombs by al Qaeda. He continues to compeletely ignore reality in what is so obviously an attempt for partisan gain, irrespective of the impact on our national security or, for that matter, the operation of the Defense Department in time of war:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that Democrats won't approve more money for the Iraq war this year unless President Bush agrees to begin bringing troops home.

By the end of the week, the House and Senate planned to vote on a $50 billion measure for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would require Bush to initiate troop withdrawals immediately with the goal of ending combat by December 2008.

If Bush vetoes the bill, "then the president won't get his $50 billion," Reid, D-Nev., told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.

. . . But their [Reid, Pelosi & Murtha's] remarks reflect an emerging Democratic strategy on the war: Force congressional Republicans and Bush to accept a timetable for troop withdrawals, or turn Pentagon accounting processes into a bureaucratic nightmare.

If Democrats refuse to send Bush the $50 billion, the military would have to drain its annual budget to keep the wars afloat. Last week, Congress approved a $471 billion budget for the military that pays mostly for non-war related projects, such as depot maintenance and weapons development.

. . . In a recent letter to Congress, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England warned that the Army was on track to run out of money by February.

England also said that without more money the military would eventually have to close facilities, layoff civilian workers and defer contracts. Also, the budget delay could disrupt training efforts of Iraqi security forces and efforts to protect troops against roadside bombs, he said.

"The successes they (the troops ) have achieved in recent months will be short lived without appropriate resources to continue their good work," England wrote in a Nov. 8 letter.

. . . The House was expected to vote as early as Wednesday, with the Senate following suit by the end of the week.

Read the article. What will the Democrats do when the MSM begins reporting the news? There will be a price to pay for their perfidy. One gets the impression that they think by closing their eyes and putting their fingers in their ears, they think that they can ignore reality until it goes away and leaves them alone in their fantasy world. Reality won't - but the independent voters who will decide the next election likely will.

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Pelosi & Murtha Still Seeking To Declare Defeat in Iraq

This is difficult to believe, but Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, has scheduled a vote on a bill to force U.S. to cease combat operations by December and begin a withdrawal from Iraq. Jack Murtha has stated that the only way he will allow a funding bill for the Iraq War out of his committee is if the President agrees to begin withdrawing troops per this new bill. And to top it off, in an apparent burst of what passes for patriotism among the neo-liberals of today’s Democratic Party, Pelosi has scheduled the vote for Veteran’s Day.

The Democratic leadership lacks any semblance of principal and is motivated by nothing more than the desire for power. Iraq is of course still problematic and its future uncertain, yet the news coming out of Iraq now is very positive. Al Qaeda, who chose to make their central stand against the US in Iraq, has been all but defeated. The casualty figures are dropping significantly, displaced Iraqis are returning to Baghdad, and there is a return to normalcy in many parts of Iraq. This is not to minimize the problems Iraq still faces, but the Democrats’ ostensible justifications for leaving Iraq – that Iraq is a “quagmire” and a “civil war” – have clearly been invalidated.

But that does not stop the leadership of the Democratic Party from trying to snatch a defeat from what is looking more and more like the jaws of victory. They are fully invested in defeat.

As Alan Dershowitz wrote in the WSJ a few days ago, that could be a major problem for his party:

. . . Most of the Democratic presidential candidates are seeking partisan advantage from what many Americans see as the Bush failures in the war against terrorism and especially its extension to Iraq and possibly, in the future, to Iran.

This pacifistic stance appeals to the left wing of the democratic electorate, which may have some influence on the outcome of democratic primaries, but which is far less likely to determine the outcome of the general election. Most Americans--Democrats, Republicans, independents or undecided--want a president who will be strong, as well as smart, on national security, and who will do everything in his or her lawful power to prevent further acts of terrorism.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans may watch Michael Moore's movies or cheer Cindy Sheehan's demonstrations, but tens of millions want the Moores and Sheehans of our nation as far away as possible from influencing national security policy . . ..

. . . Unless the Democratic Party--and particularly their eventual candidate for president--is perceived as strong and smart on national defense and prevention of terrorism, the Bush White House may be proved to have made a clever partisan decision by refusing to make the war against terrorism a bipartisan issue. The Democrats may lose the presidency if they are seen as the party of MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich and those senators who voted against Judge Mukasey because he refused to posture on a difficult issue relating to national security.

Update: There is a good article on the absurdity of the Pelosi / Murtha surge towards defeat against all odds in the NY Post.

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