Terrorist-committed violence in Iraq has plummeted since the start of the surge of forces, a senior U.S. officer reported yesterday from Baghdad."But we're losing!"
"Terrorist attacks are at their lowest level since January 2006," Navy Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference. The overall number of attacks in Iraq is 55 percent lower than the period before the surge took hold in June, Smith said.
Civilian fatalities across Iraq are down by about 60 percent during the same period, Smith said. And civilian deaths in Baghdad are down 75 percent, he added.
Iraqi security forces casualties are down by 40 percent since the beginning of the surge, Smith said. And on Nov. 16, Iraq experienced just 33 terrorist incidents, he pointed out. "This is the lowest number of any attacks in a single day in Iraq in nearly three and a half years," Smith said.
Sigh....
Meanwhile Iraqi's, tired of the violence and the fanaticism of al-Qaeda, are coming out of the woodwork letting the coalition know where they can find weapons caches and IED's:
Iraqi citizens' hotlines have helped Iraqi and coalition forces to foil the plans of myriad extremists and other criminals, said Phillip Reeker, Baghdad counselor for public affairs, who accompanied Smith at the news conference.We're winning and all the defeatists on this thread are crying about it. Just pathetic.
The citizens' efforts "have allowed authorities to detain hundreds of insurgents, terrorists and criminals, and led to the recovery of hundreds of weapons caches that no longer endanger Iraqi and coalition lives," Reeker said.
A recently-opened national hotline center boasts 40 operators and work stations, with room to add 80 additional employees, Reeker reported. The new center complements a series of very effective local hotline facilities located across Iraq, he added.
On top of all that, the other defeatists in Washington, namely the Democrats, are playing chicken with funds needed to pay for anti-IED initivies:
If Congress does not come through with a supplemental bill President Bush will sign, money for defeating the largest killers of American personnel in the war on terror will run out Dec. 1, a senior official said here today.But hey, they want to prove a point. A point that defeat can be our only option. How dare we try to win this thing!
Retired Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, told Pentagon reporters that the organization will have to stop funding new initiatives and just maintain operations.
“We’re out of (funding) new stuff now; we’re going to have trouble sustaining current contracts after the first of December,” Meigs said.
The anti-IED organization needs the funding to sustain operations and to pay for equipment fielded but not yet turned over to the services for funding, Meigs said. For example, he said, his organization funds the Guardian man-portable jammer, the contractors to service it, and the training in the system.
The organization tests new projects, ideas, ways of doing business and equipment against IEDs. If they prove effective, the organization is nimble enough to quickly can get the equipment to the hands of servicemembers. Meigs said the organization has enough money “to keep the lights on” through April. The organization is funded via supplemental spending bills.
“What I can’t fund today will not go into the field next summer or next fall,” Meigs said. “It’ll be delayed by the amount of time we wait for funding.”