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Key excerpt:

"Next came the rivers campaign — to destroy the insurgent infrastructure west and northwest of Fallujah, and so shut down those "ratlines" — which continues apace.

May saw four operations within that campaign:

* The first, Operation Matador, was a week-long Marine action centered on Qaim, near the Syrian border. Matador sought to kill and capture followers of Zarqawi known to be located there and to interdict the smuggling routes they used to move downriver to Baghdad. Some 125 insurgents died in the fighting.

* Next came Operation New Market, another Marine operation, in the Haditha area southeast of Qaim. Here, a major highway from Syria crosses the Euphrates and then branches north toward Mosul and southeast toward Fallujah and Baghdad. While the insurgents did not stand and fight as they had in Qaim, the operation still netted substantial intelligence.

* The third was a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation in the Mosul-Tel Afar region that contains the Tigris River ratline.

* The fourth operation of this campaign was the aforementioned Lightning/Thunder in Baghdad itself, which led to the capture of a former general in Saddam's intelligence service, who (according to the U.S. military) led "the military wings of several terror cells" operating in west Baghdad. Hundreds of other insurgents were captured as well.

The rapid tempo of Coalition operations will likely continue. ..."

Two points: 1) the fact that we are chasing them out into desert hell-holes tells us we made progress in getting them out of more important towns like Fallujah, Samarra and Ramadi.

2) The "Fast tempo" is a major reason why the insurgents are attacking more *and* we are taking casualties on offense.

MSM treats it as a setback, but in fact this may force resolution faster than we would otherwise expect.

"The high operational tempo is intended to rapidly degrade the rebels' lines of communication at both ends of the two river corridors, while killing and capturing as many of the enemy as possible. "

If that happens, the insurgency will be a shadow of its former self within a matter of months.