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"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." - Barack Obama, January 2007

I'll let Vets for Freedom speak for themselves. (click to see video) To give Obama his due, he has acknowledged the success of the surge, but there's always a caveat. It's the liberal instinct, really, to give credit to the other while being overly critical of the self. It's the kind of credit a guy might give his wife on how hot she looks after her new boob job, but what are you going to do about those cottage cheese thighs? Jack's Smirking Revenge knows what I'm talking about.....

Vets take Obama to task By: Mike Allen August 26, 2008 10:45 AM EST DENVER — The conservative group Vets for Freedom is launching a $1.1 million ad buy during the Democratic National Convention, using video of Iraq war veterans to take Barack Obama to task for not giving the surge policy sufficient credit for improvement in battleground conditions. The 30-second spot, called “I Am the Surge,” features three Iraq war veterans who served in the surge of U.S. military forces into Iraq: Gabriel Herrera, David Thul and Travis Quinlan. The ad will run in Denver and Minnesota during the...

Relying on Senator Biden's foreign policy judgment is risky. Both he and Senator Obama backed the wrong horses in Iraq. When it was unpopular, Senator McCain stood up for victory in Iraq and pushed for what later became known as the successful Surge. Senator Obama, of course, put his finger to the wind and followed public opinion down the path of least resistance. ...

Wow! Vets for Freedom is out with this fantastic ad called, "I am the Surge." It features American heroes saying, "I am the Surge," and they call on viewers to call Sen. Barack Obama and ask him to support a Senate Resolution 636 introduced to recognize the success of the Surge Strategy in Iraq. The resolution was introduced by Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Lindsey Graham. Very powerful! . . . (see video)

No wonder Barack Obama got such a tepid reception this week at the Veterans of Foreign Wars' convention. The better the United States does in Iraq, the worse he looks. If only his strategy had been followed. His presidential campaign would be sitting pretty at this point instead of struggling to maintain a once comfortable lead. Iraq would still be Issue No. 1 instead of the economy, and he would be making the most of it - instead of events in Iraq working to his political disadvantage. It's been a long McGovern summer for Sen. Obama as his lead in...

On August 2, 2007, after the "surge" counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq was already yielding reported signs of success, Joe Biden - who was running for President - posted on YouTube a campaign video which included clips from his speech from the floor of the Senate, denouncing the "surge" and predicting its utter failure. Here's are Biden's words (on the video, go to the 3 minute mark): "The question is do we continue - do we continue - to send our kids into the middle of a meat grinder, based on a policy that is fundamentally flawed. We predicted there would...

The New Republic reports good news from Iraq. I love the grudging good news reports that come from Liberal bastions like the NY Times and the New Republic. Of course, when the Bush haters report on improvements in Iraq, there's usually a backhand agenda lurking. This time, its Joshua Hammer gleefully reporting that "mercenaries" are taking big pay cuts and going unemployed due to the decreasing violence. See how this works? Find a bright spot, but then use it to poke Bush, Halliburton, Blackwater, whomever supported this damned war! Iraqis are *Gasp* making their own oil contracts with other sovereign...

I mean, the truth of the matter is that, that the—America’s—this administration’s policy and the surge are a failure, and that the surge, which was supposed to stop sectarian violence and—long enough to give political reconciliation, there’s been no political reconciliation. The reality is that we’re supposed to, as you said, stand up American—or stand up the Iraqis so the Americans could stand down. We’ve been hearing that for five years. We’re nowhere near being able to do that. The reality is that, although there has been some mild progress on the security front, there is, in fact, no, no...

A funny thing happened this summer: John McCain taunted Barack Obama into making a trip to Iraq, whereupon the press looked around and finally noticed what those who were paying attention had known for some months now. The country portrayed for the last four years by the press and the Democrats as Vietnam-in-the-Desert is doing much better, what with al Qaeda on the run, the Sunnis and Shias coming together, the Shia militias largely defeated, and the war itself looking more or less .  .  . won. "The combat phase finally is ending," trilled the Associated Press, which had been warning of...

The NYT's have finally admitted what pretty much everyone has already figured out for themselves. The surge has worked. But all that we have gained, all we have achieved could be undone by a precipitous withdrawal: Yet for all the signs of fatigue, General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted. And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope,...

TEMECULA, Calif. -- As top Democrats address their national convention in Denver, they will propose "ending" Operation Iraqi Freedom, demand a speedy withdrawal of U.S. forces there, and insist that "Bush lied, and people died." What they will not do is apologize for their nearly universal failure in judgment regarding President Bush's spring 2007 Surge of 20,000 troops into Iraq. Widespread Democratic defeatism and lack of faith in our GIs' ability to win gouged a gap between their forecasts of doom yesterday and Iraq's far sunnier outlook today. With few exceptions, Democrats got this one dead wrong. "I am not...

Sen. John McCain, who watched from a prison camp as America failed to deploy the overwhelming force necessary to win the Vietnam War, seized the moment after Republicans lost Congress in 2006 to push President Bush not to make the same mistake. Mr. McCain sent a private letter to Mr. Bush on Dec. 12, 2006, that challenged the president to show the "will" to win the Iraq war by deploying 20,000 troops into Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle to beat back a growing insurgency.

Here is video of a major portion of John McCain's remarks to the National VFW Convention meeting in Orlando, Florida, August 18, 2008. He hammered Barack Obama for his opposition to the Surge Strategy in Iraq, saying Obama not only predicted the Surge would fail but tried to "legislate failure" by opposing funding for the troops. . . (see video)

To the surprise of many, John McCain seemed in his element Saturday at the candidate forum Rick Warren conducted at Orange County's Saddleback Church. As Peter Hamby notes today at CNN.com, McCain's supposed reluctance to discuss his faith was not evident; indeed, he told the evangelical audience that he had been "saved and forgiven" by Christ. Adds the MSNBC political shop: "We seriously underestimated how Saturday’s religious forum was made to order for McCain, despite the perceptions that McCain rarely talks openly about his faith. On all the questions regarding hot-button social issues, the Arizona senator didn’t have to depart...

Here is video of Sen. John McCain hammering Barack Obama on his opposition to the Surge Strategy in Iraq in pursuit of his ambition to be President. McCain pointed out that Obama not only predicted failure of the Surge Strategy, he tired to "legislate failure" once the Surge was underway be voting against funding for the U.S. Troops in the field who were carrying out the Surge. McCain made the remarks during an address before the National VFW Convention meeting in Orlando, Florida today, August 18, 2008. . . . (see video)

Republican presidential candidate and former prisoner of war John McCain took off the gloves at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) convention in Florida on Monday, accusing his opponent of putting personal ambition in front of national interest in opposing the troop surge in Iraq. McCain accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of "shifting positions" on the surge, adding that the Illinois senator's opposition to the surge and subsequent troop funding bills provided a "clarifying moment." "Not content to merely predict failure in Iraq, my opponent tried to legislate failure," McCain said. He added: "It was a moment when political self-interest...

(LAS VEGAS) - John McCain told veterans today that Barack Obama stubbornly refuses to agree that the troop surge in Iraq has worked and took legislative steps to divert funding for the effort in order to prevent progress in the Iraq war. Speaking at the Disabled American Veterans conference in Las Vegas, McCain said Obama “tried to legislate failure,” adding that “I would rather lose an election than lose a war.” “Thanks to the courage and sacrifice of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines and to brave Iraqi fighters the surge has succeeded,” said McCain. “And yet Senator Obama still...

Audio. Stand back and don the trash bags. Liberal heads will be exploding on this one.

My (unsanctioned) mission on behalf of President Bush to drum up more coalition troops for Iraq is finally paying off. I'm now at the end of my four-nation tour of the "coalition of the willing" (I'm skipping such other important members as Tonga, with 45 troops in Iraq, and Moldova, with 12). Since the White House has emphasized how firmly our partners are standing behind us, I interviewed the leaders of the Baltic nations and tried to get each of them to commit to sending 1,000 or more troops. No luck. Then I tried street mobilization: I talked to dozens...

For years, when she approached Iraqi Army checkpoints and produced an identification card for soldiers to study for clues about her sect, Nadia Hashim used a simple formula to signal the mostly Shiite Muslim force that she, too, is a Shiite. "I am one of you," she'd say. The soldiers would harass Sunnis, but they'd simply wave Hashim through. Now her pat line gets her an official reproach. When a relative used it recently, a soldier admonished the driver and the passengers. "'We are Iraqis, and you shouldn't say such a thing,' " recalled Hashim. The 35-year-old mother of three...

Good morning. This has been a month of encouraging news from Iraq. Violence is down to its lowest level since the spring of 2004, and we're now in our third consecutive month with reduced violence levels holding steady. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker caution that the progress is still reversible, but they report that there now appears to be a "degree of durability" to the gains we have made. A significant reason for this sustained progress is the success of the surge. Another is the increasing capability of the Iraqi forces. Iraqi forces now have 192 combat battalions in the...

I like NPR. They are one of the very few media outlets that have treated me extremely fairly. But here, in this NPR interview with General (retired) Jack Keane, you can hear the bias of host Alex Chadwick, and the surprise in the response of GEN (ret) Keane - one of the architects of the Surge. I think it's important to hear both Alex Chadwick and Jack Keane discuss the events around the Surge. To me, this is an indication of the level of effort being made to spin away the Surge as not successful or due to the the...

To listen to Barack Obama attempt to explain his views on Iraq and the so-called surge is becoming, for those of us who have followed his responses over the last 18 months, something of a spectacle. With every effort, it seems, he is compounding his mistakes in judgment with intellectually dishonest answers, ones which melt away under even minimal scrutiny. The latest example is Obama's appearance yesterday on Meet the Press. During the interview, host Tom Brokaw played portions of an interview with Obama on January 10, 2007 – the day President Bush's so-called surge strategy was announced – when...

Here is Sen. John McCain asking how a Commander-in-Chief could welcome victorious U.S. "Surge" Soldiers home by saying, "Good work -- but you did not win?" That is what Obama would do as he continues to deny the success of the Surge Strategy, thus denigrating the great victory of our U.S. Soldiers. McCain made the remarks during a Town Hall Meeting, July 29, 2008, in Sparks, Nevada. . . (see video)

See the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaJPGhmzwA

Earlier today, Jake Tapper did some fact-checking on Barack Obama’s assertion that he always said that an additional 20,000 troops in Iraq would have some positive effect on security. Tapper couldn’t find any evidence to support that assertion, especially in the time frame of the Congressional debate over the plan. William Amos found a speech from November 2006 that makes clear Obama’s faulty judgment on what more troops and new strategies and tactics could accomplish: Dreams of democracy and hopes for a perfect government are now just that – dreams and hopes. We must instead turn our focus to those...

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, on January 10 2007 predicted (watch HERE) that the surge of troops in Iraq would fail. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he told MSNBC. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Four days later he told CBS's Face the Nation, that "we cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality -- we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don't know any expert on the...

Barack Obama finds himself stuck between Iraq and a hard place on the surge. Instead of just admitting that he miscalculated the potential effect of the surge when he opposed it in January 2007, he has instead tried rewriting history in order to prove himself correct. ABC’s Jake Tapper looks at the Obama rebuttal — and demolishes it: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, on January 10 2007 predicted that the surge of troops in Iraq would fail. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he told MSNBC. “In fact, I...

Why Do Europeans Love Obama? Let us count the ways:1) Obama’s tax code, support of big government programs and redistribution of income, and subservience to UN directives delight the European masses—especially at a time when their own governments are trying to cut taxes, government, seek closer relations with the US, and ask a petulant, pampered public to grow up.2) He offers Euros a sort of cheap assuagement of guilt—in classic liberal style. When Obama says falsely that he does not look like other Americans who have addressed Germans (cf. Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice who have represented US foreign policy...

Barack Obama praised U.S. forces for the success of the surge in Iraq, but said success there is less important than the fact the U.S. should not have invaded in the first place. ...candidate said attention has been focused on the surge because people tend to look at narrow tactics over broader questions. He acknowledged that the 30,000-troop surge that he opposed when it was announced in March 2007 “made absolutely a difference.” However, he added, that U.S. troops alone could not have brought peace to Iraq without Sunnis forming “Awakening Councils” that decided not to cooperate with Al Qaeda...

Here is the McCain quote that the Dems and the Obama Fan Club (aka the press), are using to simplistically claim that McCain is changing his position and agreeing with Obama, "proving" Mr. Obama right: “He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground,” Mr. McCain said. “I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground. This success is very fragile. It’s incredibly impressive, but very fragile. So we know, those of us who have been involved in it...

Obama acknowledged today that he had failed to understand how much violence would decrease this year in Iraq, but he contended that President Bush and Sen. John McCain, the Republicans' presumptive presidential candidate, had made the same mistake. Meanwhile, McCain insisted in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that he had not shifted his support of an American exit in 2010, despite comments he made Friday that the 16-month withdrawal plan espoused by Iraq's prime minister "is a pretty good timetable." ... Obama said that the violence "has gone down more than any of us have anticipated, including President Bush...

Here is video of Sen. John McCain saying in an interview that Barack Obama "does not understand what is at stake in Iraq." McCain made the statement on "This Week" today, July 27, 2008, and clearly set forth the fact that Obama opposed the Surge Strategy in order to gain his party's nomination, against the best interests of a United States victory in Iraq. . . . (see video)

WASHINGTON (June 24, 2008) — The surge in Iraq has been a success by any measure, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said during a news conference June 23. The policy, announced by President Bush in December 2006, pushed additional brigades in to Iraq to provide a security umbrella so the Iraqi military could build and the country’s government could grow. The surge has allowed Iraq to make improvements from security, political and economic standpoints, Morrell said. The last of the five surge brigade combat teams recently left Iraq. “By every metric that we measure violence in Iraq, there has been...

Here is a report from NBC's Kelly O'Donnell on remarks by Sen. John McCain yesterday in which he characterized the decision early last year on supporting or opposing the "Surge Strategy" in Iraq as a "real-time" Commander-in-Chief test. McCain bluntly said that he passed that test and that Barack Obama failed. McCain needs to keep this a part of every speech he gives from now to November. . . (see video)

McCain began by recalling the beginning of the surge: "Senator Obama and I also faced a decision, which amounted to a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief. America passed that test. I believe my judgment passed that test. And I believe Senator Obama's failed. We both knew the politically safe choice was to support some form of retreat. All the polls said the "surge" was unpopular. Many pundits, experts and policymakers opposed it and advocated withdrawing our troops and accepting the consequences. I chose to support the new counterinsurgency strategy backed by additional troops -- which I had advocated since...

When CBS's Katie Couric interviewed John McCain on Tuesday, her producers edited one exchange to include part of McCain's answer to a previous question on Iraq -- and, in the process, deleted comments that have touched off a controversy. The "CBS Evening News" interview began with Couric quoting Barack Obama as saying that "there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?" But what viewers saw next was not what the Arizona senator said next, an out-of-order sequence that news organizations generally do not allow. It was McCain's earlier comment that "Senator Obama has...

Susan Estrich and USA Today slam Barry for ducking the question.

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, Barack Obama will sit down with NBC News for an interview to be aired on NBC's "Nightly News." Please find below a reminder that while Barack Obama was trying to score political points in the Democratic primaries by calling the surge a failure, NBC News was reporting the progress being made in Iraq because of the surge: BARACK OBAMA ON THE SURGE In January 2007, Barack Obama Opposed The Surge: Barack Obama Said The Surge Would Actually Worsen Sectarian Violence In Iraq. Obama: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going...

John McCormack catches Wes Clark in a couple of egregious errors on the surge today on Morning Joe. The lesser mistake is Clark’s insistence that the surge didn’t involve Anbar at all, when as McCormack notes the Marines sent two extra battalions to the hotbed of terrorist activity as part of the increased deployment. Worse, though, Clark tries to tell Scarborough that the surge had nothing to do with the Marines, and everything to do with the Saudis paying off the Sunni tribes: This isn’t exactly a lost history. Actually, 4,000 extra Marines went to Anbar. The extra Marine battalions...

Politics: Barack Obama's refusal to admit he was wrong on President Bush's successful change of strategy in Iraq is as laughable as it is disingenuous. It also calls into question his qualifications to be president.Obama was clearly opposed to the surge as he courted the Democrats' anti-war base. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence," he said in 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse." But when he was confronted this week by ABC News' Terry Moran with the success of the surge, asking if he would...

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2008 – As violence levels maintain a steady decrease across Iraq, coalition forces and the Iraqi government are able to focus their efforts on reconstruction and civil issues, a senior coalition military official in Iraq said today. Iraqi forces are improved, and the government continues to develop and progress, Army Brig. Gen. David Perkins, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said in a news briefing from Baghdad. “Government, security and economic institutions continue to surge forward” throughout Iraq even as the last of the initial five surge brigades – 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team – redeployed...

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2008 – The surge in Iraq has been a success by any measure, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said during a news conference today. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell holds a press briefing on July 23, 2008, to update reporters on the latest news and events within the Department of Defense. Defense Dept. photo by R. D. Ward  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The surge has allowed Iraq to make improvements from security, political and economic standpoints, Morrell said. The last of the five surge brigade combat teams recently left Iraq. The policy, announced by...

If you read the transcript Barak Obama tells Katie Couric that the money wasted on the surge saving the lives of American soldiers could have been used to help the economy or develop an energy plan.

BUT WILL THEY RESPECT HIM IN THE MORNING?July 23, 2008 Back before the Republican Party was saddled with John McCain as its nominee, The New York Times called him "the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe." The paper praised him for "working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation" and predicted that he would appeal to "a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field." At the same time, the Times denounced "the real" Rudy Giuliani as "a narrow, obsessively secretive,...

BAGHDAD, July 23 (VOI) – The decline in armed operations against joint forces and Iraqi civilians will positively affect U.S. Top Commander in Iraq David Petraeus's recommendations on the situation in Iraq to the Congress, a spokesman for the Multi-National Force (MNF) said on Wednesday. "The recommendations that field commanders will submit to Petraeus will be included in the report, which he will present to U.S. Congress in September on the situation of the MNF and the abilities of Iraqi security forces," Brigadier General David Perkins said during a Baghdad-based press conference. The U.S. top commander "will hold talks with...

The "surge" in Iraq sure appears to have worked.  There are some who say President Bush should have listened to voices such as Senator John McCain and then Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki in the first place, rather than taking the foolish advice of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other "neo-con" hardliners. But before we give all the credit to the "more boots on the ground" stompers and all the blame to Rumsfeld and the neo-cons, let's take a second look at the surge. To set the stage, let's look at the results to date.  (In the...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq that President George W. Bush ordered last year has ended after the last of five additional combat brigades left the country, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday. The remaining troops from that brigade departed over the weekend, leaving just under 147,000 American soldiers in Iraq, the spokesman said. "The final elements of the surge brigade have now left, getting out a few days ahead of schedule," he said. The U.S. military had 20 combat brigades in Iraq at its peak in 2007, with troop levels around 160,000-170,000.

Pete Wehner has a great piece about Obama, Democrats, and the Surge. He has gone through the records of nearly every prominent Democrat, pulled their public comments on the issue, and makes them eat 'em. First Chef Wehner serves Obama a big plate of bitch-slap. Sayeth the Messiah: I don't think the president's strategy is going to work. We went through two weeks of hearings on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; experts from across the spectrum--military and civilian, conservative and liberal--expressed great skepticism about it. My suggestion to the president has been that the only way we're going to change...