Wretchard leaves out a key element in the steading of Pablo Escobar. The mysterious group "Los Pepes" who claimed to be his victims and may or may not have had help from the Colombian army and police who used Pablo's own savage tactics against him: systematically destroying his property and slaughtering his associates completely without restraint for several months before declaring their work done. It broke his empire and put him on the run. Suddenly he was alone and friendless and it was just a matter of time before the Columbians and Americans ran him to ground.
Of course the Iraqi security forces advantage is that they don't have to obey Marquess of Queensberry rules like we do.
Interesting -- you make some good points. I'm glad we've got allies in this battle. The NY Times is partially able to tie the hands of the U.S. military, but they have a little harder time doing the same thing to Iraqi government forces. That's good.