The Tide Shifting in Iraq

On April 19th 2007 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the war in Iraq is "lost," and the Democrats were accused immediately of turning their back on the troops. "I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday." So said Harry Reid, and some day those words will come back to hunt the Democratic Party.

Update as of December 1st 2007 0725 Pacific. Thanks God it is December. November dragged forever but it is now history and here are some good news reported by no other than the French press. Good news from Iraq continues to flow across the wires. The number of Iraqis killed in November was down to 606, and this is the lowest toll since brutal sectarian violence exploded across the country in February 2006, as per official figures released today. The drop in the deaths of civilians, Iraqi soldiers and police supports claims by US and Iraqi officials that military crackdowns against insurgents and militiamen across the country is having an impact. Now compare those 606 Iraqis killed in November 2007 to the worst month of this year, in January 2007 the number of Iraqi deaths was 1,992 as reported by the Iraqi authorities. See, I told you so, we are making progress.

Original post

Let me start with some famous last words for you.

In July 2006 Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker was asked whether or not we were winning in Iraq. After an exceedingly long pause, General Schoomaker replied by saying “I…y’know…I think I would answer that by telling you I don’t think we’re losing.”

In April 2007 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said "I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday."

In September 2007 Defense Secretary Robert Gates was interviews by New York Times columnist David Brooks. When asked if the invasion of Iraq was worth doing, Secretary Gates first rephrased the question: "If I'd known then what I know now, would I have done the same? I think the answer is, 'I don't know.'"

Now let's get down to business.

Back on November 2003, upon my return from my first of two Operation Iraq Freedom deployments, I wrote about the tide shifting in Iraq on another forum. That was four years ago, and I was wrong then. I believe that this time the tide is shifting. No, I do not see any flowers or kisses coming our way, but - in my opinion - things are getting better, and I do not want to use the term of things getting back to normal because they are not. We are not there yet, but the civilian leadership running this war from their seats in Washington can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Some Iraqis finally returning to their homeland, there is a big difference in the numbers provided by our government and those provided by the Iraqi government, but the fact is that some Iraqis are finally returning. On the security side, again, there is a big difference in the numbers provided by our government and those provided by the Iraqi government, but we made some progress recruiting a large number of security personnel - some of them were insurgents, some of them with coalition blood in their hands - they were given the opportunity to choose between staying with al Qaeda, and getting killed with the rest, or coming to the US side and live good and prosper with the best.

Some are measuring progress by the number of American fatalities. If that is the case then things are looking good. The number of fatalities continues to go down, and I expect to see those numbers coming down exponentially, to single digits, with the majority of fatalities caused by accidents and not by combat. Overall, I can say that we have had three good months in Iraq, and the best is yet to come. Here is a prediction for you, I can see in the not so distant future our war president giving a de facto VI DAY (Victory in Iraq) proclamation, so, let's make preparations for the victory parade in New York City, I will be there.

Thanks for reading!