A War We Just Might Win?

A War We Just Might Win? This is a must read from the New York Times by Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack. They recently toured Iraq and came away with different picture. They saw many success of the surge, not the least of which is a renewed morale of our troops. The troops believe they now have the right commanders and that they are on the right track. Here are a few exerpts:

“In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street.”

“far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

” The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave.”

The two authors bills themselves as highly critical of the Bush war management, so that seems to give them the right to tell us when things are going right. I’m not familiar with O’Hanlon, but Pollack has been around war planning and commenting for some time. I’ve never considered him anti-Bush war management, but he usually makes sense so I must trust him on this report.

The report notes that the situation remains grave and that we should remain in Iraq at least until 2008. My own opinion is to wait at least until September for Gen. Petraeus’ report before committing to a withdrawal schedule.

While searching the news, I read several reports on the conditions in Iraq. Since those reports were not my main focus, I didn’t make notes but I did evaluate the articles for authenticity as best I could. I did get an overall feeling that the conditions in Iraq, as seen by others, was not nearly as upbeat as the New York Times article. Civilian deaths are only down by 1/3 – good, but still pretty high. Seventy percent of the children are not getting enough food (but not malnourished, I guess). And a lot of other bad news. I add this note only to show how difficult it is to get an accurate picture of the conditions in Iraq and the progress of our surge.