Death Of A Patriot

IBD ^ | September 18, 2007

[Kaslin]

Iraq: Some see the assassination of a Sunni leader as a sign of a continued civil war that belies administration claims of progress. We see it as a sign Iraqis are willing to die for their country

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Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Awakening Council and a visible sign of the anti-jihadist alliance among Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, met with President Bush during his visit to Anbar province just 10 days earlier.

The car-bomb attack that killed him on Friday occurred just a year after the young sheik organized 25 Sunni Arab clans into an alliance against al-Qaida in Iraq.

The Los Angeles Times and others have taken Risha's assassination as a sign that Bush, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were blowing smoke when they spoke of Iraq's visible signs of progress, including a realignment of allegiances toward the U.S. and away from al-Qaida.

In an editorial Saturday, the Times said Risha's assassination was evidence of a "stalemate" and an unresolved "civil war." It also claimed Petraeus and Crocker recognized "the emptiness of each event that the war's supporters have heralded as a turning point — the capture of Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago, the two national elections, the killing of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last year and most recently 'the surge.' "

We have reread their testimony, and while we find a measured optimism honed by battlefield experience in the fog of war and a realism based on admitted mistakes, we find no such dismissal of these benchmarks of real progress. Certainly Risha didn't find these events "empty."