IRAQ LOOKING UP -- Gains on key fronts

New York Post ^ | October 18, 2004 | PETER BROOKES

[OESY]

...[A] number of disparate, but related, events indicate that the political and military momentum is shifting to the Coalition and Iraqi side....

NATO forces: In a significant diplomatic victory last Wednesday, the NATO defense ministers, meeting in Romania, agreed to increase the group's military training contingent in Iraq from 40 to 300 by year's end. The new military advisers (most likely initially from Denmark and Norway) will be deployed to a center outside Baghdad to train Iraqi military officers.

The NATO trainers will help boost the number of Iraqi forces from the current 100,000 to a projected 145,000 by next January. (The NATO forces will serve under American Gen. David Petraeus.) Equipping these forces is also another challenge, and NATO may play a role there as well....

Fallujah: The central-Iraq town of 300,000 has been a snake pit since the Marines ended their siege in April. But in recent weeks, precision U.S. airstrikes have killed at least six senior members of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network. And the Pentagon claims to have eliminated half the foreign fighter leadership in the last month....

Sadr City: Stubborn supporters of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have agreed to turn in their weapons in exchange for cold cash in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City....

Cooperation, relative calm and a fragile cease-fire prevail for now. If the peace deal holds, aid to rebuild this dilapidated section of Baghdad is waiting in the wings.

The point: The situation in Iraq is better than you'd think from the "if it bleeds, it leads" news reports....

Iraqis need to take control of the security situation as soon as possible. Military victories, which should include Iraqi forces for confidence-bolstering purposes, must be quickly followed up by economic aid to the contested area....

[OESY]

Peter Brookes is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow.

[NavVet]

I love it when a plan comes together.

[Coop]

Good post, thanks.

[gunnygail]

More bad news for Team sKerry/Team Socialist

[freeperfromnj]

The NY Post rules! The Times slimes. Saw a favorable report out of Iraq early this morning on Fox News also.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Thanks for the post/ping! (^:

Good news, bump!

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[handy]

The Truth About Iraq

[prairiebreeze]

This is simply horrid news. For sKerry/Backwards.

Pings

[Yardstick]

I told someone just the other day that I thought there had been a shift in Iraq. The situation is still a mess, but it has passed from being a confused mess, full of unknowns, to being a mess that we understand and have an idea how to solve. I think our problem now is mainly to train up the Iraqi security forces. This won't happen quickly and in the meantime the mess will continue to be messy, but the situation will improve as Iraq takes on the troops and police it needs to keep order and enforce the will of the government.

[McGavin999]

He's right, the most important thing is to get some projects going, especially in Sadar City. Even while waiting for some of the larger projects to start they need to get some of those people employed right away. Cleanup, painting, whatever. They also need to make sure the people know WHAT projects are waiting and how many jobs will be available. Just saying there's work out there doesn't personalize it.

[MEG33]

BUMP!

[blackie]

Big Progress ~ Bump!

[upcountryhorseman]

I see the "democratization" of Iraq as a strategy to remake
the whole Middle East. As democracy gains a foothold in Iraq, The Iranians will follow this example and Syria will
be forced to change their government.

[WOSG]

http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Saw the authors of the following two books on CSPAN booknotes Sunday. They look like awesome books.

____________________________________________

Unholy Alliance by David Horowitz Hardcover - (September 2004) - $27.95 In this tour de force on the most important issue of our time, David Horowitz, confronts the paradox of how so many Americans, including the leadership of the Democratic Party, could turn against the War on Terror. He finds an answer in a political Left that shares a view of America as the “Great Satan” with America’s radical Islamic enemies. In a remarkable exploration of the “Mind of the Left,” Horowitz traces the evolution of American radicalism from its Communist past to its “anti-war” present. He then shows how this Left was able to turn the Democratic Party presidential campaign around and reshape its views on the War on Terror.

Inside CentCom by Michael DeLong, Noah Lukeman Hardcover - (September 2004) - $27.95 Only two men on earth have the insider knowledge about what really happened at the highest levels of our government and military from September 11, 2001, through the fall of Saddam Hussein’s notorious dictatorship in Iraq. One of these men is Army General Tommy Franks. The other is Marine Corps General Mike “Rifle” DeLong, Franks’s deputy. General DeLong was Donald Rumsfeld’s “answer man” during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He assembled and held together the international coalitions for the War on Terror and the war against Saddam Hussein. And while Franks was in the field, former Marine combat pilot DeLong ran CentCom, the nerve center of both wars.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Thanks for the heads up. It is reassuring to know that C-Span featured them.

[fuzzy122]

[BenLurkin]

bttt