How The Surge Is Succeeding

IBD ^ | March 5, 2008

[Kaslin]

Iraq: A bright young infantry officer just back from Baghdad is dazzling audiences with the story of how our forces turned things around in Iraq. And he warns that the place where the war can be lost now is at the ballot box in America.

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U.S. Army Capt. Pete Hegseth graduated from Princeton less than five years ago, but since then he has served as a volunteer with the 101st Airborne in its 2005-06 Iraq deployment. This included stints as a platoon leader in Baghdad during the December 2005 elections and as a civil-military operations officer in Samarra for seven months.

When the Golden Mosque was destroyed there two years ago, triggering a huge escalation of sectarian violence over the following months, Hegseth was awakened by the explosion.

Now, Hegseth is fighting on another front in the war on terror — the one in Washington. The Bronze Star winner is executive director of Vets for Freedom, a nonpartisan organization composed of combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who share their firsthand knowledge to educate politicians and the public about the need to win those conflicts.

He spoke to a Manhattan Institute audience in New York City on Tuesday after just returning from spending a week with a unit in Baghdad.

Hegseth reported that during that time just spent in Iraq, he didn't hear a single shot fired or a single explosion. This, he said, underscored the absurdity of the political debate in Washington regarding the surge in Iraq, especially among many Democrats who would squander our recent successes there with big withdrawals of forces.

The remarkably positive situation in Iraq today came after our forces engineered an incredible turnaround in just a few months, a process Hegseth described in some detail.

[Bahbah]

Pete Hegseth is an amazing man.

[dougherty]

My husband is currently deployed to Iraq. He was last there in 2004 and said it IS much better now than then.

[Clintonfatigued]

The fact that the MSM isn’t covering the Iraq War like it used to proves that the surge is succeeding.

[anglian]

[lonestar67]

I agree with these articles generally but I think they miss some of the specific alternative realities. One was clearly suggested by Bin Laden: they will follow the strong horse not the paper tiger.

Our homegrown appeasers constantly raised the specter of withdrawal and the defining or our mission as failure. When Bush repudiated that message so powerfully amplified in the 2006 elections and sent More troops not withdrawal, he signaled to Iraqis that he was the strong horse.

That rhetorical signal combined with AQs brutality put us on a fast track to success.

[hsalaw]

John McCain may want to make Vets for Freedom part of his own arsenal this year.

John McCain would be wise not to repeat the stupid idiotic position he took against the Swift Boat Vets who spoke out against that fool Kerry. McCain's not a big fan of free speech, but he'd better learn to live with it.

[Kaslin]

And he must know.

[Kaslin]