Meanwhile back at DNC headquarters the Democratic Party's mascot is not coping well with the new developments in Iraq...
Posted on 11/28/2007 1:40:00 PM PST by mdittmar
Nearly 6,000 Sunni Arab residents joined a security pact with American forces Wednesday in what U.S. officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for extremists flushed from former strongholds.
The new alliance — called the single largest single volunteer mobilization since the war began — covers the "last gateway" for groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq seeking new havens in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said.
U.S. commanders have tried to build a ring around insurgents who fled military offensives launched earlier this year in the western Anbar province and later into Baghdad and surrounding areas. In many places, the U.S.-led battles were given key help from tribal militias — mainly Sunnis — that had turned again al-Qaida and other groups.
Extremists have sought new footholds in northern areas once loyal to Saddam Hussein's Baath party as the U.S.-led gains have mounted across central regions. But their ability to strike near the capital remains.
A woman wearing an explosive-rigged belt blew herself up near an American patrol near Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, the military announced Wednesday. The blast on Tuesday — a rare attack by a female suicide bomber — wounded seven U.S. troops and five Iraqis, the statement said.
The ceremony to pledge the 6,000 new fighters was presided over by dozen sheiks — each draped in black robes trimmed with gold braiding — who signed the contract on behalf of tribesmen at a small U.S. outpost in north-central Iraq.
For about $275 a month — nearly the salary for the typical Iraqi policeman — the tribesmen will man about 200 security checkpoints beginning Dec. 7, supplementing hundreds of Iraqi forces already in the area.
About 77,000 Iraqis nationwide, mostly Sunnis, have broken with the insurgents and joined U.S.-backed self-defense groups.
Those groups have played a major role in the lull in violence: 648 Iraqi civilians have been killed or found dead in November to date, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press. This compares with 2,155 in May as the so-called "surge" of nearly 30,000 additional American troops gained momentum.
U.S. troop deaths in Iraq have also dropped sharply. So far this month, the military has reported 34 deaths, compared with 38 in October. In June, 101 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.
Village mayors and others who signed Wednesday's agreement say about 200 militants have sought refuge in the area, about 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk on the edge of northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Hawija is a predominantly Sunni Arab cluster of villages which has long been an insurgent flashpoint.
The recently arrived militants have waged a campaign of killing and intimidation to try to establish a new base, said Sheikh Khalaf Ali Issa, mayor of Zaab village.
"They killed 476 of my citizens, and I will not let them continue their killing," Issa said.
With the help of the new Sunni allies, "the Hawija area will be an obstacle to militants, rather than a pathway for them," said Maj. Sean Wilson, with the Army's 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division. "They're another set of eyes that we needed in this critical area."
By defeating militants in Hawija, U.S. and Iraqi leaders hope to keep them away from Kirkuk, an ethnically diverse city that is also the hub of Iraq's northern oil fields.
"They want to go north into Kirkuk and wreak havoc there, and that's exactly what we're trying to avoid," Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq, told The Associated Press this week.
Kurds often consider Kurkik part of their ancestral homeland and often refer to the city as the "Kurdish Jerusalem." Saddam, however, relocated tens of thousands of pro-regime Arabs to the city in the 1980s and 1990s under his "Arabization" policy.
The Iraqi government has begun resettling some of those Arabs to their home regions, making room for thousands of Kurds who have gradually returned to Kirkuk since Saddam's ouster.
Tension has been rising over the city's status — whether it will join the semi-autonomous Kurdish region or continue being governed by Baghdad.
"Hawija is the gateway through which all our communities — Kurdish, Turkomen and Arab alike — can become unsafe," said Abu Saif al-Jabouri, mayor of al-Multaqa village north of Kirkuk. "Do I love my neighbor in Hawija? That question no longer matters. I must work to help him, because his safety helps me."
In Baghdad, crowds waited until nightfall for the arrival a bus convoy carrying more than 800 Iraqi refugees home from Syria. The buses — funded by the Iraqi government — left Damascus on Tuesday and were expected in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday. Government officials gave no details on the delay.
And this is an AP article no less. I’m afraid this will be Ms. Frayer’s last however.
Militia
ping
Never mess with concerned armed Citizens.
Harry and Nancy are deeply saddened.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
For about $275 a month —
No wonder the Rats want to cut off funding! That’s way too much money for peace in Iraq! ;-)
“And the enemy of my enemy is my friend...”
Harry and Nancy are deeply saddened.
But, but, we are losing in Iraq. It’s a quagmire I tell you! This is a vast right wing conspiracy. Iraqis want us out and we must leave NOW!!! HeHeHe, I would love to be a fly on the walls.
"This compares with 2,155 in May as the so-called "surge" of nearly 30,000 additional American troops gained momentum."
Emphasis added. They just LOVE to downplay U.S. achievements. Nothing like calling a successful military strategy a "so called" strategy.
Jerks.
I do not believe this story since I did not read it in the NYT.
“Turn out the lights, the party’s over!” - “Dandy” Don Meredith
Harry and Nancy with the rest of the Traitor Party, have already surrendered...this can not be, this can not be, we have already lost I tell you, damn it.... we have already lost!
Yes :)
Will the last al Qaeda guy please turn out the lights on your way out ping?
Do you see a pig out there in the blue? One with wings and possibly hovering?
Probably had an intern file it because she was distraught.
Well, they’re actually correct here. It wasn’t the surge that turned the tide, it was the move to a counterinsurgency strategy, of which the surge was a necessary element.
bttt
To the RATS this is no longer an issue. They are going to move on to something else.
My bet is Oprah Winfrey is going to spend a lot of time on the front pages over the next week or two.
My guess on what they’ll eventually end up saying, is that without the pressure from the Democrats, the President wouldn’t have finally gotten serious about the war and implemented General Petraeus’s surge/counterinsurgency strategy, or even nominated General Petraeus. And honestly, they’d probably right. Still doesn’t even begin to excuse them for their traitorous behavior/actions though.
Obama = Frey
Who's Frey you ask? He's the guy who turned out to be a fraud after Oprah pimped his book to the masses. I wonder if she'll have a similar sit down with Obama after he's exposed as a fraud?
Maybe someone should tell brian depalma.
Meanwhile back at DNC headquarters the Democratic Party's mascot is not coping well with the new developments in Iraq...
Looking back just from when I was there 2003 - 2004 and comparing that to now you see huge changes.
One of the critical pieces in this equation is that these sort of things take a long time! The anti-war pundit always has it easy in such cases because people are inherently impatient. As things move forward, and they are, it's incremental and slow, with no huge single event that brings a sort of closure. Events like the elections are the exception, and it's the small generator here, the well there, or the police station that starts operation and never made the news which cumulatively eventually makes the big picture. So the anti-war pundit has it easy to argue failure. War is essentially ugly. The anti-war pundit always has an easy time pointing at something ugly. Mistakes will always happen; you have literally thousands of interactions per day between US and Iraqi’s, billions being spent, half a million US troops over the years rotate in and out of Iraq. The anti-war pundit will have an easy time finding something somewhere that went wrong and focusing in on that.
It’s easy to find small mistakes in huge systems even when things are going OK. When issues become politicized as Iraq has, nearly everything you hear and see is distorted, and since the media has a powerful liberal bias, so is the leaning in their reporting. But there is no question about it, Iraq "is" moving foreword in all aspects; may that me self governance, the rule of law, their security systems, infrastructure, or their economy. The true agenda and the intelectual dushonesty of the anti-war pundit was and remains easy to identify as they meander from issue to issue refocusing on some new "quagmire, Vietnam, miserable failure" or whatever else. First it was the immediate security, then infrastructure, then us not having caught Saddam and his henchmen, then the economy and fuel prices in Iraq, then an election timetable that could not possibly be made........ and as the issues are knocked over, one at a time, the anti-war pundit simply grasps for another straw.
Excellent analysis!
Agree with the last post by avacado, your analysis is excellent.
Found dead, i.e., decayed bodies from prior killings. I wonder what the number is. You say presstitutes are "jerks", I say they are evil...
Great post, midittmar. Great analysis, Red6. Thanks. BTTT!
The bad news keeps piling up for AQI..
It’s to the “bandwagon effect” by this point. Militia’s are jumping from Al Qaeda’s sinking ship over to our bandwagon in order to get paid (and live).
I agree.
Good one :)
But I feel bad for the horse :(
I hope that we’ll see film at 11 because, if you ask me, this is hugh.
LOL!
I just can't get over all of the good news!
Thanks for the post and ping!
Here’s where it gets interesting: what if Al Qaeda *is* surging right now?
I mean, what if this is the most that they are able to do?
Consider, back in April and November of 2004, AL Q was able to wound over 1,200 Americans and kill more than 120 of us.
Those months were peaks for them. They were able to surge up to that much killing power, but they were never able to maintain that kind of lethality for long. They’d have a peak, then they’d fall off for a couple of months or so.
Back in September of this year they only managed to wound 347 Americans, a fourth of their peak power back in 2004.
Now they are killing ~~ about 30 of us a month (stats get murky with numbers so low when you mix in non-combat deaths such as from auto accidents and heat stroke and such).
But what if that is a peak? We’ve probably all been under the assumption that Al Q was in one of its cyclical “falling off” months...but what if that assumption is flawed?
What if Al Qaeda is surging what’s left of its organization to produce that little amount of killing power?
Well, we’re about to see. October and November are going to be roughly equal in Iraq in terms of who killed whom. Low for them getting us. High for us getting them.
But a cyclical “fall off” from an Al Q surge would make the December stats plummet even faster than our anticipated killings of AQI bad guys would predict. And there’s little chance that Al Q could come back from such a letup, either.
What tribe wants to die for the weak horse?
Will the last al Qaeda guy please turn out the lights on your way out ping?...I was kinda hoping none of them would get out without dying. Sorry, I'm just that way.
Wouldn't it be perfect if, at the end of 20 years and the defeat of the mullahs in Iran, RUSSIA and CHINA find themselves bordered by a new "NATO" made up of pro-US Muslim governments?
It is more of a counter insurgency operation that involves changes in the rules of engagement, increase in coalition troops, significant increase in Iraq troops/police, negoiations with tribes, reconstruction teams etc etc etc. But, you are on point that the context of the AP article is to put down the American involvment and make it sound like it was someone else.
“Do I love my neighbor in Hawija? That question no longer matters. I must work to help him, because his safety helps me.”
They’re finally starting to figure it out.
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