Iraq violence at a four-year low
posted at 10:00 am on May 27, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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If Barack Obama accepted John McCain’s challenge to visit Iraq, what would he hear from General David Petraeus? His briefing would highlight improvements on every front, including greater political reconciliation and the recent strength shown by Nouri al-Maliki in Basra and Sadr City in establishing sovereignty throughout Iraq. Obama would also learn that violence has now dropped to a four-year low, thanks to the efforts over the past 12 months to establish order through the “surge”:
The U.S. military said Sunday that the number of attacks by militants in the last week dropped to a level not seen in Iraq since March 2004.
About 300 violent incidents were recorded in the seven-day period that ended Friday, down from a weekly high of nearly 1,600 in mid-June last year, according to a chart provided by the military.
The announcement appeared aimed at allaying fears that an uprising by militiamen loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr could unravel security gains since 28,500 additional American troops were deployed in Iraq in a buildup that reached its height in June.
Navy Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a military spokesman, credited the decrease to a series of operations launched by the Iraqi government in the last two months to extend control over parts of the country that have been under the sway of armed Sunni Arab and Shiite militants. They include crackdowns in the southern oil hub of Basra, the northern city of Mosul and Baghdad’s Sadr City district.
The irony of this is that the improvements could result in a significant drawdown of American forces regardless of the results of our election in November. The secret surge — the buildup of a professional Iraqi Army — will soon make American combat troops superfluous. Maliki tried to go it alone in Basra and wound up needing some logistical and air support for his operations, but Sadr City appears mostly to have succeeded in staying all-IA. The quiet resolution in Mosul has established order in the last bastion of AQI, and while a number of those terrorists appear to have hotfooted out of the area before Maliki’s arrival, over a thousand suspects remain in custody.
The question facing the next president will be the manner of withdrawal, not the fact of it. The Maliki government wants American support for the near- to mid-term in order to consolidate central-government sovereignty and keep Iran out of its hair. The Iraqi Army needs a little more time to develop its troops and especially its logistics, but they now perform well enough to conduct their own security operations with little involvement of American ground troops. An orderly transition to a support role, akin to Germany and South Korea, would bolster the Iraqi elected government and keep the US military in good position to run counterterrorist operations in the region, with the Iraqis as allies.
Maliki already knows this. Iraqis will not long abide American combat troops in Iraq past the necessity, and as we see in Sadr City, the emphasis on an all-Iraqi effort makes a great deal of difference. Getting Americans out of the front lines will benefit everyone, and Maliki’s proposal for a security agreement is based on that reality. He envisions a significant drawdown in 2009 as part of that agreement, and the Iraqi Army appears ready to assume the entire front-line role.
John McCain has made this point all along. His vision of counterinsurgency warfare saved Iraq from collapsing into a Somalia with oil when that result appeared inevitable at the end of 2006. With the violence dropping rapidly and Iraq stabilizing under a representative democracy, the US cannot afford to walk away entirely and give away the strategic positioning a partnership with Iraq would provide.
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Sure there is less violence, but gays still can’t get married in Baghdad therefore we lost.
Bishop on May 27, 2008 at 10:03 AM
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
(reaction from the left)
right2bright on May 27, 2008 at 10:07 AM
HAAA HA-HA-HA! (to the above)
But in all seriousness, the MSM is holding all of this wonderful news back, just in case a liberal dim gets elected….then you will hear all of the wonderful things going on in Iraq.
kcd on May 27, 2008 at 10:08 AM
“Mission accomplished”
pecan pie on May 27, 2008 at 10:11 AM
That’s a fact Biraq.
JiangxiDad on May 27, 2008 at 10:11 AM
I read this yesterday and it was some great news for the son of a (deceased) Sergeant Major to receive on Memorial Day. The only thing worse than soldiers loosing their life in war is when they lose it in vain. It seems like we will avoid that particular tragedy in Iraq thanks to a President willing to throw away “political capital” to do what needs to be done and, most importantly, to our men and women on the battlefield.
note: My father did no fall on the battlefield but, because he was the veteran of two wars, Memorial Day was a much respected holiday in our home.
12thman on May 27, 2008 at 10:21 AM
General Petraeus should go down in history as one of our greatest Americans ever. What a brilliant man.
WisCon on May 27, 2008 at 10:27 AM
MB4 must be at work. Look for him later to set us all straight with how this is actually meaningless or even bad news.
Rod on May 27, 2008 at 10:28 AM
He will definitely go down as one of our greatest military leaders, imho.
12thman on May 27, 2008 at 10:29 AM
God Bless America.
kirkill on May 27, 2008 at 10:32 AM
There should be no doubt about the capabilities of the American military when they are allowed to go do their job by the politicians. People want to say that our military has been stretched thin and weakened by war. Oh how they underestimate the overwhelming strength and power of the greatest military the world has ever seen.
pecan pie on May 27, 2008 at 10:35 AM
Imagine the phenomenal progress we could have made in Iraq and throughout the Middle East if the Dems and the MSM had openly supported the Bush Administration policies from the get-go.
Bush had the courage to draw a line in the sand and the liberal donkeys jumped over it to assist the terrorist community. Look where it’s gotten us.
And THEY say Bush is responsible for losing our once proud status on the world stage?
Look in the mirror, sissies.
fogw on May 27, 2008 at 10:37 AM
“…improvements on every front, including greater political reconciliation and the recent strength shown by Nouri al-Maliki in Basra and Sadr City in establishing sovereignty throughout Iraq…credited the decrease to a series of operations launched by the Iraqi government in the last two months to extend control over parts of the country that have been under the sway of armed Sunni Arab and Shiite militants. They include crackdowns in the southern oil hub of Basra, the northern city of Mosul and Baghdad’s Sadr City district…the violence dropping rapidly and Iraq stabilizing under a representative democracy…”.
.
It appears we can see more than the proverbial light at the tunnel. We can see VICTORY not too far off.
.
Those who are therefore furious at defeat starign them in the face include: the Iranian dictatorship; their Syrian toadies; our “friends” the Saudis; Al Qaeda in Iraq…and last and certainly not least, the Democratic Party.
.
What does it take to believe the Democratic Party leadership is really patriotic and really puts Country above mere partisan concerns? A real “willful suspension of disbelief”, to quote on of their most egregious culprits.
DavePa on May 27, 2008 at 10:43 AM
Couldn’t be done said the Left in this country.
EAT IT!
Yakko77 on May 27, 2008 at 10:44 AM
The sooner the Iraqis can take over and kill one another, the better.
Then reposition our freed-up troops to go get al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s “tribal regions” with renewed vigor.
Hopefully, Barack will be watching all this from his home in Chicago, in 2009, as he sees that his Surrender Plan for the presidency failed.
profitsbeard on May 27, 2008 at 10:45 AM
“There’s progress here, but….. we should never have been here in the first place” - Obama, speaking in Iraq, in the future
Seixon on May 27, 2008 at 10:48 AM
But it’s a quagmire and we can’t win and we’ve lost!
Will any reporter try and ask Sen. Byrd or John Murtha about this lack of violence?
rbj on May 27, 2008 at 10:48 AM
Barry would squint his eyes shut, put his thumbs in his ears, and sing lalalalalalalala really loud in order to drown out the truth.
Buy Danish on May 27, 2008 at 10:50 AM
why is McCain’s picture on the front of this post? this is Bush’s baby… if it’s going well he can’t have any credit? what exactly does McCain have to do with a 4 year low in violence?
Kaptain Amerika on May 27, 2008 at 10:51 AM
Memorial day is for the living, to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
The ones who lived, often carry the burden of the many comrades who had fallen.
A friend in VietNam, got up to go to the head in the middle of the night, his barrack was mortared, and to this day he still wonders why he didn’t wake up his buddy to go with him.
Memorial day the veterans see what could have been, what should have been…the real veterans do see dead people.
right2bright on May 27, 2008 at 10:54 AM
that “permanent Republican Majority” likely would’ve materialized if the Dems were like the Old-School Dems. So they politicized/lied about the entire thing and have completely brainwashed the public about something this important….all for power.
jp on May 27, 2008 at 10:56 AM
He’ll try to make the case that the cost was too high, at which time I hope someone spanks him with this:
” Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
trubble on May 27, 2008 at 10:57 AM
If
, where did they go? Were there American troops surrounding Mosul waiting for them? Is there any word on what the American troops did while the Iraqi Army went into Mosul?
Iraqi civilians in the cities probably prefer the terrorists to be chased out by their fellow countrymen than by American soldiers, but they probably don’t care who sends them to the 72 virgins out in the boonies.
General Petraeus is a military genius and a true American hero, and is probably seen that way by many Iraqis as well.
If the “surge” was partly McCain’s idea, now is a good time to start the debate over who REALLY has “judgment to lead”. Where would Iraq be now if we had followed Obama’s judgment?
Steve Z on May 27, 2008 at 11:00 AM
I posted this story a couple of weeks ago about the progress in Iraq and the MSM seems to have missed it.
McCain insisted on a “Surge” approach and he got it.
The Political situation in Iraq has improved significantly over the past month. Sadr is a footnote.
Nelsa on May 27, 2008 at 11:01 AM
It is too early. McCain should have waited to talk about this in August or October. Now Obama has plenty of time to go there and act all statesmanlike with cameras blaring. I was going to suggest this tack in Jan, Feb, and March. . . but I knew that too soon would give him an opportunity to rectify the situation.
It is too early. He’ll go in June or July (July 4th probably) with a throng of reporters now showing how presidential he is. . . that will take away this argument for McCain. And there’s no way he’ll share the spotlight with McCain on his trip. He’ll use it to say now we can REALLY bring our troops home and bolster his argument.
However,
Isn’t this Bush’s call? How about the removal of Rumsfeld to allow Gates’ call? I understand that McCain agreed, but to say that it was McCain’s ‘vision’ seems a little revisionist historian to me. This was Bush and Gates’ vision after having messed up under Rumsfeld for 4 years.
ThackerAgency on May 27, 2008 at 11:03 AM
I pasted the entire article in the form box and sent it to Harry Reid.
WisCon on May 27, 2008 at 11:05 AM
Amen
12thman on May 27, 2008 at 11:10 AM
I have an even better imagine. Imagine the progress we could have made and how much less costly in American blood and treasure it would have been had the global community stepped up to the plate and/or stuck with the fight when the fighting got tough.
The institutions and most of the democratic alliances set up post WWII have utterly failed to live up to the challenges of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
12thman on May 27, 2008 at 11:13 AM
Pffffffffttttttttt…
Yes McCain was ahead of the curve (or on the fight-don’t-pussy-foot curve) but he was NOT the architect of the surge.
That honor belongs to the men and women in the Pentagon who fought tooth and nail to put the war on a different footing.
Petraeus and the commanders and officers of the 101st, 82d, 4th ID, 3rdACR, 2nd and 1st Marines, and a whole lot of others who put together a strategy and most importantly the TACTICS to turn this thing around.
I applaud McCain for thinking but most of all I applaud him for listening to the troops on the ground and giving them the support they needed to throw away Rumsfield’s fort up and wait for sunrise strategy.
It was the generals folks. Some politicians got on the bandwagon willingly, some had to have their arm twisted, and some just flat out stuck their head in the sand.
Saying McCain is the great visionary of the surge is like saying FDR layed out the order of battle for Normandy.
Limerick on May 27, 2008 at 11:16 AM
Assuming you are willing to “really require the willing suspension of disbelief”…
I agree with you, but 30% of the people don’t.
right2bright on May 27, 2008 at 11:29 AM
This is how you win a war. Sucks that Zinni and Abizaid couldn’t do what Petraeus has done; we might still have a Republican Congress.
It’s almost impossible to imagine how badly things would have spiraled out of control if the Democrats had succeeded in forcing a U.S. withdrawal a year ago.
rockmom on May 27, 2008 at 11:43 AM
let’s not get carried away… a good man, doing a good job, with a bad deal of the hand… but Greatest Americans ever?
if he were actually brilliant, then we’d be done and he wouldn’t be leaving Iraq Command… yes he gets to command it and even more from the new position… but to me all this Command changing is a sign of weakness to our enemy. you fight a war, you fight the whole war and all the way through… the Islamic countries are still acting and running their policies as they have for thousands of years… they only respect the strong. they will endeavor to exploit the weak…
Gen. Douglas MacArthur? now there is a General who was one of the Greatest Americans… the country of Japan you see today is a product of his doing… a people that were decimated by their enemy, allowed him to Nation Build a new democracy and they thrived… why could America’s current generals not do the same with such a smaller, weaker nation?
one word… ISLAM
Kaptain Amerika on May 27, 2008 at 12:26 PM
right2bright on May 27, 2008 at 1:12 PM
R2B,I agree too. Try to put that 30% into prospective. At any given time in this country there are probably 30% who believe there are aliens living among us. 30% who believe in gov’t conspiracys, black helicopters and such. And the freakiest of all….30% who think Pelosi & Reid are the best thing since baked bread! UGH!! My point is, in all likelyhood 30% of our country are idiots! he-he-he
kcd on May 27, 2008 at 1:37 PM
Bush and McCain both deserve credit for not buckling under pressure. I am sure that Bush appreciates the support in the Senate that he got from McCain on this issue.
As for the violence, 15 troops have died in Iraq this month. Two of them were from non combat related causes. Another soldier died in Chicago when he came home on leave and was killed by a hit and run driver.
For the names of lost soldiers and how and when they were killed go to Global security. It has numbers for every month.
Terrye on May 27, 2008 at 1:42 PM
30% of the people in this country do not approve of the Democratic controlled Senate or the job the media has done in covering the war on Iraq.
I think people are just in general pissed off.
Terrye on May 27, 2008 at 1:44 PM
That’s faulty logic. Generals change commands all the time in war and it is hardly “weakness” to get promoted to a more responsible job. Given your reasoning, Tommy Franks should still be out there commanding.
General MacArthur was a traitor who forgot that he wasn’t the Commander-in-Chief. Great American generals don’t plot political strategy behind the President’s back.
highhopes on May 27, 2008 at 1:57 PM
Let`s all keep our fingers crossed and hope President Obama doesn`t screw this up.
ThePrez on May 27, 2008 at 2:26 PM
Did anyone here catch Bill Bennett this morning? I heard the tail end of an interview with John Hinderaker who definitively explained how America is indeed safer since the war began, thus removing the Obama claim that Bush’ failed policies have failed to make us safer.
Here’s a link to the data, thanks to Mr. Bennett.
Yet Obama will continue to repeat the liberal chakras while the lemmings of the left follow blindly.
cannonball on May 27, 2008 at 2:40 PM
Aren’t Lemmings supposed to jump off a cliff….at some point in their lives? Get on with it you Do-Do birds!!!
kcd on May 27, 2008 at 2:46 PM
If Obama does go to Iraq, I wonder if he’ll have to eat by himself.
Kafir on May 27, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Cons: “Hey, that’s cool.”
Mods: “Well, that’s progress.”
Libs: “Damn, that sucks.”
Tony737 on May 27, 2008 at 3:28 PM