Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Shhh ... the surge is working (part onze)
Anyone who's read Bing West's gritty account of the 2004 Battle of Fallujah can tell you how significant this news is:
With Iraq’s notorious Anbar province now in the hands of civilian authorities, the United States has reached a major milestone in the Iraq War, military experts say.
On Monday, President Bush announced that the United States has formally turned control of the former al Qaeda stronghold back to Iraqi authorities.
"Today, Anbar is no longer lost to al Qaeda – it is al Qaeda that lost Anbar," Bush said. "Iraqis – like countless other Muslims across the world – witnessed al Qaeda’s brutality first-hand and rejected it. As a result, Anbar has been transformed and reclaimed by the Iraqi people."
Retired Army Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis, a military expert and consultant to the Pentagon on Iraq and Afghanistan, told CNSNews.com that the transfer of authority was a major coup.
"It’s absolutely phenomenal that we’ve turned around, since the beginning of the surge, perhaps the largest eyesore and trouble spot in all of Iraq, and now it’s being run by Iraqi security forces,” Maginnis said from Germany, where he is training coalition troops.
"It’s evidence of the fact not only that the surge has worked but that the Sunni brothers have basically come to the rescue of their own people," he said.
Two years ago, Anbar was the most violent of Iraq’s 18 provinces – with al Qaeda threatening almost every major town in the province – a fact that did not escape the notice of the Iraqi government at Monday’s handover ceremony.
More proof that the surge is working:
U.S. casualties in Iraq were higher in August than they were in July, but down sharply from a year ago, according to a CNSNews.com analysis of Pentagon data. There were 20 U.S. casualties connected with Operation Iraqi Freedom in August 2008, 13 of which were caused by enemy action. That compares to 83 casualties in August 2007, 56 of which were caused by enemy action.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Wednesday, September 03, 2008 
