Posted on 10/18/2007 6:44:33 AM PDT by StatenIsland
Al Qaeda in Iraq on the Run Maybe the U.S. Congress will save it?
By Clifford D. May
Al Qaeda is on the horns of a dilemma. Last month, some 30 of its senior leaders in Iraq were killed or captured. Now, Osama bin Laden faces a tough decision: Send reinforcements to Iraq in an attempt to regain the initiative? That risks losing those combatants, too — and that could seriously diminish his global organization. But the alternative is equally unappealing: accept defeat in Iraq, the battlefield bin Laden has called central to the struggle al Qaeda is waging against America and its allies.
Hard times for al Qaeda should be good news for America but you wouldn’t know it from the reaction of the antiwar movement and their sympathizers in Congress and the elite media. Many have been unwilling even to acknowledge that U.S. forces are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. They claim we are merely refereeing a civil war and/or combating Iraqi “resistance” to American “occupation.”
CNN this week ran a special called “Meeting Resistance,” a documentary about what it called “ordinary Iraqis …taking up arms and fighting the Americans.” Earlier this month Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., Va.) lamented that Congress had been unable to pass legislation to “change the mission away from deep involvement in Iraq’s civil war and toward a more narrow focus on fighting al-Qaeda.”
How startled CNN producers and the Senator must have been to see the front-page story this week in the Washington Post reporting that American troops have dealt “devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq.” If our forces have achieved this without it being their mission, and despite the “resistance” of “ordinary Iraqis,” they must be warriors unlike any the world has seen since Thermopylae.
Is it ignorance or partisanship that makes so many politicians and media moguls blind to what has been happening in Iraq over recent months? Do they really not understand the dramatic change in strategy implemented by Gen. David Petraeus, the new American commander in Iraq?
That key to that strategy, known as the “surge,” is not the number of troops deployed — though a minimum force size is necessary — but rather how they are utilized. Col. Wayne W. Grigsby, Jr., who commands a “surge” brigade based in a mixed Sunni and Shia area near Baghdad, made it simple for me in a phone conversation this week: “We do not commute to work,” he said. “We live in the towns with the people we are here to help.”
That means providing them with security — gathering intelligence from them about where the terrorists are hiding, and then eliminating them, their safe havens, their bomb factories and their weapons caches. Do that and the bloodshed begins to subside.
“The Iraqi people are fed up with the violence and with the extremists, both Sunni and Shia,” Grigsby said. Far from “resisting” the American troops in their communities, “they want to join the fight and protect their neighborhoods. They are coming to us and saying, ‘How can we help? We don’t want to live like this.’”
Volunteers do not form sectarian militias. On the contrary, Grigbsy said, “they want to be recognized as legitimate members of the Iraqi security forces.”
American troops also facilitate economic and political development — something, they say, ordinary Iraqis sincerely desire. What about reconciliation? “I see signs of Sunni and Shia getting along,” the colonel answered. And there is, increasingly, “grass-roots governance. People aren’t waiting for the central government to act.”
Despite the fact that many more American troops are now deployed “outside the wire,” the number of soldiers killed in action is down 64 percent from May, the month before the “surge in numbers” reached full strength and the “surge of operations” began against al Qaeda cells, Iranian-backed militias and other enemies of America and Iraq.
And now bin Laden has to choose: send his most capable lieutenants to try to reheat the insurgency in Iraq; or cede the battlefield to the Americans and the majority of Iraqis who have no interest either in blowing people up or embracing the al Qaeda way of life.
The first course risks losing combatants who could otherwise be promoting al Qaeda’s agenda in Hamburg or New Jersey. As for the second course, bin Laden has said that the “world war” raging in Iraq will end in “either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation.”
At this moment, al Qaeda in Iraq seems likely to suffer the latter. Confronted by America’s adaptable, agile and courageous military forces, its only hope is divine intervention — and maybe the U.S. Congress.
This entire process has taken time to play out and I don't think there is much that could have been done to speed up the process. This is particularly true because what we've been fighting is a Sunni Arab mindset that is not entirely rational. Their belief that they could dominate Iraq with just 15% of the population was ludricous given the fact that the remaining 85% of Iraq was now armed and ready, willing and able to defend themselves. In any event, the Sunnis Arab had to get the stuffing beat out of them not just by us but by the Shia as well before they came to the conclusion the insurgency wasn't going to work.
I find it curious that some supporters of this war credit our recent success to sticking with the “original plan.”
Did you read the quote I provided to you from General Petraeus ?
A second question. When did the Anbar Awakening take place — was it after the surge or before the surge?
The War On Terror
Disrupt Al Queda - Check
Kill scores of Al Queda terrorists - check
Kill scores of senior Al Queda leaders - check
Render Al Queda completely ineffective - Not yet.
Kill Osama Bin LAden - Not yet
Topple the Taliban governing Afghanistan - Check
Establish New Government in Afghanistan - Check
Afghanis vote on New Government - Check
Women given right to vote in Afghanistan - Check
Render the Taliban completely incapable of presenting a threat - Not yet.
Topple Saddam’s government - Check
Defeat the Iraqi Army - Check
Write New Constitution for Iraq - Check
Citizens vote on New Constitution - Check
New government formed - Check
New Government completely capable of self-defense - Not yet.
We won the wars. We’re winning, slowly, the occupation and rebuilding.
2. As I wrote in "America's Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars," the "surge" was working before it worked. That is, one of the MAIN reasons it's working---which everyone seems to ignore---is that we killed more than 40,000 of these guys, wounded 200,000, captured 25,000, and in all likelihood another 10,000 simply quit or defected. These are astounding numbers, and they mean that by the time the "surge" got in place, we had already hollowed out AQ in Iraq, very, very badly.
[Petraeus] then reflected on the past strategy. “For a variety of reasons, some pretty good reasons, we were gradually consolidating in larger bases and handing off to the Iraqis. The transition to Iraqi Security Forces, Iraqi control and local control was emphasized heavily. That was sort of moving along reasonably well until it was really undone by the bombing of that mosque and the resulting sectarian violence.
My question about the timing of the Anbar Awakening was intended to point out that given that the Awakening occurred before the surge, putting an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq was not a precondition to obtaining a significant breakthrough in the war.
Absolutely wrong analysis. Rummy had the right approach, and the “surge” was working long before it worked. It’s akin to wondering why, all of a sudden, the Russians on the east front managed to just “roll over” a German enemy that had dominated them earlier-—it’s called, attrition. We completely hollowed out AQ long before Rummy left, and it was always only a matter of time, as many of us said.
If you look at my “America’s Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars,” it’s pretty clear statistically why the “surge worked.” We had already SLAUGHTERED al-Qaeda in the previous three years. Instead of front-line guys, we are now fighting the 2d and 3d teamers, and many, many fewer of them.
Excellent!
Now we need to $hit can our enemies within.
That’s part of it. A bigger part is that they faced increasingly 3d tier troops. Read the German war diaries. They were getting troops that had never fired weapons before.
A major reason we are about to win this war is that PravdABDCNBS has lost its monopoly. The truth is able to go around their Wall.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
That the Arab, with his strangely subtle mind--a being so vain, so given to exaggerate, and so susceptible to propaganda, in spite of the fact that he is credited with believing only what he sees--is extremely difficult for a European to understand, will probably be admitted even by those who know him best. One of them, an Arab of Arabs, Ibn Saud, Sultan of Najd, in a letter which I read some time ago and noted, remarked, "As regards the tribal leaders and notables of Iraq from whom you want the improvement of the country, they do not wish that the people of Iraq should be quiet, and that there should be law and order in the land. It is impossible to change their nature, as this has been their policy of old and continues so to-day. Their whole idea in life is to stir up the people in order to gain profit from the Government. It may be accepted as an incontrovertible fact that it will be impossible to manage the people of that country except by strong measures and military force. Never forget that the feelings which animate them are expressed in the saying, "He who even dips his pen in an inkstand on behalf of a Christian, that man becomes a Kafir.' "
The writer of this letter may possibly be prejudiced in some degree, but his words contain much that will be admitted to be true.
The future of Iraq is not a matter easy to foresee, and apart from my ignorance of Arabic, my experience of the country is too short to warrant the expression of an opinion.
That future, as we should say, lies on the knees of the gods, or, as the Arabs would put it, " Wa Allah 'alam," which, being interpreted, means "God is all-knowing."
Never mind all the technological advances of the world, do you think Iraq really has changed so much since the days of T.E. Lawrence? So much so that they may become the future allies in the war in terror that we hope they become?
Going to check out your books. Do you have backup for those #’s you state- always looking to give lib friends cold hard facts to stymie their b.s. thanks
Whether Iraq can be a "modern democracy" remains to be seen. Despite Dinesh D'Souza's recent book, I do think the majority of Muslims are "secular" Muslims, which is to say, some are very devout and some are Muslims because daddy was a Muslim and Mommy was a Muslim, etc. Don't know why we want to credit Muslims with higher levels of "devoutness" than we do Christians.
Most surveys show that about 25-30% of "Christians" are devout---by a variety of measures. A large majority do not know what the Bible says, and a sub-group of that majority would not care what it said, regardless, and would still call themselves Christians.
I say this because no matter what WE 'think' the Koran 'says,' it's irrelevant. All that matters is what most Muslims think it says, and then, whether they are committed to following it as they think it requires. Again, the evidence is, most people don't live this way. They abide by the basic tenents (prayer, almsgiving), ignore a lot (multiple marriages, slavery), and reject some (jihad, war).
So regardless of the form of government that is finally put in place in Iraq, I do think they will be our reluctant ally for a long time.
Also, although he is shy about publicizing it, Freeper Southack has done tremendous analysis on enemy casualties, IED effectiveness, and so on.
Yes, the surge represents a change in plan, dictated by changing circumstances on the ground.
My point was that I think the President is to be commended for his steadfast commitment to the overall war effort, and his fortitude in giving the original specific strategy enough time to work - or not.
The downside of this determination is that perhaps he remained committed to the original “small footprint” approach for too long, but I think that is hindsight.
I would rather have a steady hand at the helm, than a nervous nellie who blows in whichever wind seems to be prevailing in the moment.
It seems that the President now has the correct commander in Petraeus, and a working strategy with the surge. The news has been trending positive for several months. God willing, it will continue to do so.
With any luck, the situation will be so strongly stabilized by the time President Bush leaves office, that victory cannot be undone by his successor - whoever she may be...
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