Surge Working In Anbar

GDollars37 · September 23, 2007, 4:09am

[quote]100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
100meters wrote:
And that truth is? Since the vast majority of attacks aren’t AQI and are simply Sunni Insurgents, I wonder what that truth may be?

How can you be sure who is attacking us? How can you differentiate between Sunni insurgents and AQ? They are not wearing uniforms, are they? Explain your reasoning here?

The truth is the surge is clearly working in Anbar.

The truth is 100meters and his fellow Democrats have bet their political future on failure and disaster in Iraq.

It makes honest discussion with him impossible.

Again, the surge HAS NOTHING TO DO with Anbar, damn you’re thick. Sunni’s made a tactical decision to join with us (way BEFORE the surge) because they were unhappy with AQI overreaching, they are still insurgents and still hellbent on our withdrawal.
[/quote]

I wouldn’t say NOTHING, but he’s mostly right, the Anbar Awakening predates the surge, and it by no means implies a reconciliation between the Sunnis and the central government, which is the main issue. It’s great that relatively junior U.S. Army and Marine officers saw what was happening and used it to our advantage, but the long-term effects are lot more complicated. And again, the surge probably helped the process a bit, but that’s it. Is this really that tough to understand?

GDollars37 · September 23, 2007, 4:14am

And more importantly, the surge isn’t sustainable. That’s THE big issue. We should have expanded the Army and Marines in 2001, not 2007, because now we’ve got a situation where 44% of a West Point class doesn’t stick around for a second five years of duty. That’s the highest loss rate in thirty years.

It’s great the surge has temporarily reduced violence in some areas. The whole point of it though, was to give breathing room for the Sunnis and Shias to come to some kind of accomodation. That clearly has not happened. As in Vietnam, Algeria, Northern Ireland and virtually all wars like this, the political results trump the military ones, every time.

Fitnessdiva · September 23, 2007, 9:05am

The surge has worked at decimating our own military.

Gkhan · September 23, 2007, 5:23pm

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
it by no means implies a reconciliation between the Sunnis and the central government, which is the main issue. [/quote]

True, because the central government is Shia dominated and the militias are Sunni. But it could be a start to get the Sunni militias involved in their government and reconstruction of their country. I think ultimately that is the goal.

Gkhan · September 23, 2007, 5:27pm

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Brent Beleskey - HOME [/quote]

read the link copied from the above post.

Thanks. It is a great shame that the powers that be in the pentagon did not anticipate and take the neccessary steps to counter this problem.

All you would have to do is look at the problems in Israel and the experiences the US had in Somalia and Lebanon to know what was going to happen. The terrorists did not change their tactics. We just did nothing to counter/stop them.

100meters · September 23, 2007, 5:42pm

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
it by no means implies a reconciliation between the Sunnis and the central government, which is the main issue.

True, because the central government is Shia dominated and the militias are Sunni. But it could be a start to get the Sunni militias involved in their government and reconstruction of their country. I think ultimately that is the goal.[/quote]

Hmmm…less than 2% of sunni’s in anbar eligible to vote in 05 actually did so, and sunni’s think maliki is an iranian puppet and obviously hate Iran so the goal is not very likely. Remove the American forces and resolve the Iranian influence, then you got a chance, till then about 150 people a day will keep getting killed (slightly higher with the surge)

Gkhan · September 23, 2007, 6:07pm

[quote]100meters wrote:

sunni’s think maliki is an iranian puppet and obviously hate Iran so the goal is not very likely. Remove the American forces and resolve the Iranian influence, then you got a chance, till then about 150 people a day will keep getting killed (slightly higher with the surge)

[/quote]

Ok, how the hell would you do that? Remove our forces, that’s one thing we can do. So, how would you say we do the rest if not by reconciliation?

Are you another person who longs for the good old days of Saddam?

BostonBarrister · October 1, 2007, 7:35pm

Some very interesting charts and analysis showing how the surge affected Iraqi casualties in Baghdad:

Just keep scrolling down after you follow the link.

lixy · October 1, 2007, 8:29pm

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Some very interesting charts and analysis showing how the surge affected Iraqi casualties in Baghdad:

Just keep scrolling down after you follow the link.[/quote]

It’s Ramadan. The resistance as well as the terrorists are hungry and busy praying.

But it’s always good news to know less people are dying. Thanks for sharing.

BH6 · October 1, 2007, 9:00pm

Here are a couple of links giving some more figures and maps showing reductions in sectarian violence in Badhdad and the Anbar province.
http://www.understandingwar.org/JonesFigures.html

Here is a summary of the surge and troop deployments.

http://www.understandingwar.org/IraqReport/Backgrounder02.pdf

I wish I had better access so I could get in on these threads earlier.

BostonBarrister · October 2, 2007, 1:20am

A different measure of success:

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ss_iraq_09_30.asp

[i]Monday, October 1, 2007 New: Take a Stand

Last letter from doomed Al Qaida chief: ‘We are so desperate for your help’
BAGHDAD ï¿½?? The U.S. military is eliminating Al Qaida’s chain of command in Iraq.

Officials said several leading aides to Al Qaida network chief Abu Ayoub Al Masri have been killed by the U.S.-led coalition. They said two out of the four foreign aides of Al Masri remain alive.

On Sept. 25, the U.S. military killed an Al Qaida chief deemed responsible for transporting foreign operatives to Iraq. The Al Qaida commander, identified as Abu Osama Al Tunisi, was killed in a U.S. air strike as he met his colleagues in Musayib, about 60 kilometers south of Baghdad.

Shortly before he died, Al Tunisi wrote a letter that warned of a threat to Al Qaida operations in Karkh. The lettter, found by the U.S. military, sought guidance from Al Qaida leaders amid coalition operations that hampered Al Tunisi’s network.

“We are so desperate for your help,” the letter read.

“This was a dangerous terrorist who is no longer a part of Al Qaida in Iraq,” U.S. Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, chief of staff of the Multinational Corps Iraq, said. “His death deals a significant blow to their operation. Abu Osama Al Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders within Al Qaida in Iraq.”

Anderson said Al Tunisi and two other Al Qaida operatives were killed in the U.S. Air Force bombing mission. The brigadier told a Sept. 28 briefing that an F-16 multi-role fighter leveled the building where Al Tunisi had been meeting Al Qaida operatives.

Al Tunisi was said to have been a leading adviser to Al Masri, officials said. They said Al Tunisi, a Tunisian national, might have been designated Al Masri’s successor.

“The inner circle of leadership with Abu Ayoub Al Masri consists of foreigners, and Al Tunisi was in this top tier of leadership,” Anderson said.

This was the second leading aide of Al Masri killed in less than a month. On Aug. 31, another member of Al Masri’s inner circle, Abou Yaakoub Al Masri, was killed near Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad. Anderson said the two remaining foreign leaders of Al Masri’s inner circle remain at large.

“The top two Iraqis, Abu Shahed and Abdallah Latif Al Jaburi, have also been captured or killed,” Anderson said.

Al Tunisi was termed the emir, or commander, of foreign operatives in Iraq. Anderson said Al Tunisi was responsible for the arrival of Al Qaida recruits into Iraq and their placement in operational cells.

Officials said more than 80 percent of suicide bombings have been by foreign operatives. They said most of the Al Qaida recruits arrive in Syria by air and continue overland into Iraq.

Al Tunisi was said to have been operating in Yusufiyah, southwest of Baghdad, since November 2004. Officials said he became commander of the area in 2006 and was responsible for the abduction and killing of two U.S. soldiers in June of that year.

The U.S.-led coalition operation began on Sept. 12 when an Al Tunisi aide was captured. Officials said the aide provided information that led to the capture of other key associates of Al Tunisi south and west of Baghdad.

One of the aides was said to have identified Al Tunisi at the meeting in Musayib. The other two Al Qaida insurgents killed in the F-16 bombing were identified as Abu Abdullah, said to be the new commander of the southern part of Baghdad’s Karkh region, and Sheik Hussein, an Al Qaida facilitator.[/i]

BostonBarrister · October 3, 2007, 6:18am

No news is good news, w/r/t the MSM:

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=276131413423304

[i]Iraq’s Golden Silence

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, October 01, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Media And War: Ever since the Sept. 10 testimony of Gen. David Petraeus, we’ve heard less and less from the mainstream media about the war in Iraq. The old adage “no news is good news” has never been truer.

That the media are no longer much interested in Iraq is a sure sign things are going well there. Instead, they’re talking about the presidential campaign, or Burma, or global warming, or . . . whatever.

Why? Simply put, the news from Iraq has been quite positive, as Petraeus related in his report to Congress. Consider:

ï¿½?ï¿½ On Monday came news that U.S. military deaths in Iraq fell to 64 in September, the fourth straight drop since peaking at 121 in May and driving the toll to a 14-month low.

ï¿½?ï¿½ Civilian deaths also have plunged, dropping by more than half from August to 884. Remember just six months ago all the talk of an Iraqi “civil war”? That seems to be fading.

ï¿½?ï¿½ The just-ended holy month of Ramadan in Iraq was accompanied by a 40% drop in violence, even though al-Qaida had vowed to step up attacks.

ï¿½?ï¿½ Speaking of al-Qaida, the terrorist group appears to be on the run, and possibly on the verge of collapse ï¿½?? despite making Iraq the center of its war for global hegemony and a new world order based on precepts of fundamentalist Islam.

ï¿½?ï¿½ Military officials say U.S. troops have killed Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian senior leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was responsible for bringing foreign fighters into the country. Not surprisingly, the pace of foreign fighters entering Iraq has been more than halved from the average of 60 to 80 a month.

ï¿½?ï¿½ Last month, 1,200 Iraqis waited patiently in line in Iraq’s searing heat to sign up to fight al-Qaida. They will join an estimated 30,000 volunteers in the past six months ï¿½?? a clear sign the tide has turned in the battle for average Iraqis’ hearts and minds.

ï¿½?ï¿½ Finally, and lest you think it’s all death and destruction, there’s this: Five million Iraqi children returned to school last week, largely without incident, following their summer vacations.

None of this, of course, is accidental. The surge of 28,500 new troops announced by President Bush last February, and put in place in mid-June by Gen. Petraeus, seems to have worked extraordinarily well. Al-Qaida, though still a potent foe capable of committing mass atrocities, has been backpedaling furiously.

“They are very broken up, very unable to mass, and conducting very isolated operations” is how Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson described al-Qaida’s situation in comments this week.

Things have gone so well, in fact, that leading Democratic contenders have stopped calling for a “timetable” for withdrawal and can’t even promise they’ll remove all the troops by 2013.

In short, the U.S. is ï¿½?? yes, we’ll use the word ï¿½??winning the war against al-Qaida. And not just in Iraq. In fact, the only way we won’t win is if we do something very stupid ï¿½?? such as letting the overwhelmingly negative media convince us we can’t do what we clearly are doing. [/i]

100meters · October 4, 2007, 9:27pm

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
No news is good news, w/r/t the MSM: