Al Qaeda in Iraq on the Run

National Review Online ^ | 10/18/07 | Clifford May

[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.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

There certainly was an army left. Suggest you make a list of all the players in Iraq who would be best prepared to look after the country.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Bless those little girls.

[dougd]

Historically losing fewer than 4 U.S. soldiers per day in combat is not even a blip on the radar screen.

... from a coldly statistical viewpoint, our troops are actually safer in Iraq than in the US if you look purely at death rates of the populations.

I know ... the populations in question are not normalized for age and gender, but I can't get sufficient data to accomplish that - still ... it is telling

THAT is an incredible achievement - if a double edged sword in that it permits naif's to wail as though war ought be entirely bloodless.

[dougd]

No, there was no Army left. It is not disputed that they had "melted away" by the end of the initial invasion. Bremmer did make it official after the fact with his Disbandment order - recently made something of a controversy with all the "who did what" of early last month - but his only other option was to somehow reconstitute it - and the question then is how anyone could have done that?? Did anyone have some list? Should we have searched house to house for uniforms?

Nor is it obvious that reconstituting it would have been such a great idea knowing how corrupt it was, filled with Baathists, extremely resented by the Shiites, etc. etc.

[wgflyer]

Imagine what this nation could do if even one politician on either side believed in the greatness of this country as much as does Rush Limbaugh.

[bray]

The Surge has Worked and AQ is Dead

If BL is on this side of the earth, he has no choices. He sends more AQ to Iraq and they have nowhere to hide. The citizens can spot them like a Black Man at a Klan Convention, and will receive the same reception. Its over for AQ in Iraq and the humiliation will spread elsewhere.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[RichInOC]

HOW ARE YOU OSAMA!!
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

[StatenIsland]

Thank you for this EXCELLENT analysis and post:

“You view it as a “mistake” because you can’t handle the news media pounding away against a long war...because you can’t handle the GOP being criticized night and day on every page of every newspaper printed, but Historically losing fewer than 4 U.S. soldiers per day in combat is not even a blip on the radar screen.

Yes, it’s tragic that even 1 U.S. soldier is killed, but that was a foregone conclusion once the 2nd plane hit the 2nd WTC tower in NYC...that the U.S. was going to lash out and teach *someone* a lesson.

Even better, what we have done is to topple a region-destabilizing dictator who financed suicide bombers in Israel (haven’t heard about many suicide attacks there recently, have you noticed?!), shot at U.S. warplanes enforcing no fly zones, and harbored notorious international terrorists on Iraqi soil such as Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal (Achille Lauro hi-jacking), Abu Musab al Zarqawi, etc.

But wait, there’s more. Because we sat in for the long war in Iraq, we turned that area into a terrorist roach motel that has seen more than 120,000 anti-American elements flock to battle and meet their deaths there. And that’s just the number of anti-American fighters who showed up toes first at the Iraqi morgues. Far more have been wounded (welcome to insurgent medical care).

The example that we set in Iraq convinced Khadafy in Libya to *peacefully* surrender his WMD program to us where it resides at Oak Ridge even as I type this note.

And Syria yanked its army out of Lebanon as soon as Bush said “Boo!”

Chirac is gone from France. Martin is gone from Canada. Schroeder is gone from Germany.

These are major shifts away from recent anti-Americanism.

Of course, I don’t blame you for wanting a short (or no) war in Iraq. American lives and money have been spent there.

But where you and I probably differ is that I see those tremendous sacrifices as aiding all surviving Americans for decades...perhaps even for centuries to come.

Faced with the above American display of willpower and an Ethiopian army on the ground, Al Qaeda quickly crumbled in Somalia rather than attempting to stay and regroup/bide their time, for instance.

Recruits to jihad and supplies for jihad are so limited that Al Qaeda has to scrape to put together a simple car bomb in Pakistan, of all places (e.g. Bhutto assasination attempt). They can’t even knock off a civilian woman now.

Little girls go to school in Afghanistan, something that they didn’t do before...and they thank Americans for it rather than hearing only to curse the U.S. as they were told by the Taliban before we banished them to caves (in those few cases where jihadists even managed to survive our attacks).

It’s game changing, but it is a long war strategy. Roach motels. Slow, democratic political change. Money. jobs. Rebuilding efforts. Alliances.

This is not a war for attention deficit disorders or weak hearts.

But it beats losing the entire airline industry from attacks that use innocent grandmothers and grandchildren to ram into building after building day after day.

The lesson had to be taught. The teacher charges blood. School’s still in session.”

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From Flopping Aces:

Nothing To Report

*********************EXCERPT************************

Posted by Scott Malensek on October 18, 2007 at 4:50 PM

• Iraq sees dramatically low death toll
• Anbar Rising
• The Anbar awakening spreads
• Kharmah Awakens
• Tribal leaders in Diyala announce alliance against al-Qaeda
• Two Shiite Leaders in Iraq Reach a Peace Agreement
• In Baghdad, Iraqis turning against Sadr’s Iranian backed militia
• Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled
• Iraqis ready to join police in Baghdad hotspots

Just a few of the good news stories coming out of Iraq, and last night on ABC World News with Charles Gibson comes another such report:

One item from Baghdad, today. The news is that there is no news. The police told us that to their knowledge, there were no major acts of violence. Attacks are down in Baghdad, and today, no bombings or roadside explosions were reported.

Fact of the matter is, when Saddam's statue fell, the Arab world was in shock because they'd been at least half believing Baghdad Bob's reports, and blew off all reports of American success-even as US forces held the airport with live video feeds. The same is true this time, but instead of the Arab media, it's the entire world media. If a statue falls (if an enemy collapses), and no one reports it...does it make a sound? Did it actually happen? Of course it does. Things are happening fast in Iraq-despite the State Department's deliberate foot-dragging.

Success in Baghdad
Success in Anbar
Success in Diyala
Success in Basra
Al Queda decimated-(and not reinforcing)

I submit....the war in Iraq is heading for a finish line (or at least the low level of violence that'll facilitate a reduction in US forces as well as take it off the political debate forefront). Additionally, Al Queda is changing its central front to Pakistan where it can rally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, get nukes, and the US can't even get involved.

Besides, there's no room on the political calender anymore for forcing a politically-driven withdrawal. Bin Laden's no moron. He can look at a calender, see it's not gonna happen, and he can essentially give up on Iraq. It was always just a talking point to get recruits for him anyway.  What Bin Laden and Al Queda really want is nukes.  They openly declared it in December 98, and were caught trying to get them as early as 1993.  Pakistan's got 'em already, and he can take them just by rallying the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of supporters there and starting a civil war like he almost did in Iraq.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See #89

[bray]

The Surge has Worked and Victory is at Hand

Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters