A Sign Of Progress In Iraq?

With IED Attacks And Combat Deaths Down, Cause For Optimism

(CBS)  There were 28 combat dead in November. Compare that to 120 killed last May as the troop surge was reaching full strength, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

And even a hard-core critic like Democratic Congressman John Murtha, D-Pa., who once proclaimed the troop surge a failure, is impressed.

"I think the surge is working," Murtha said.

Most of the deaths were caused by what has always been the number one killer - roadside bombs; but the threat posed by so-called improvised explosives devices is nowhere near what it was just this summer.

"The IED attacks are down about 50 percent from a peak about three or four months ago," Ret. Gen. Montgomery Meigs says.

In the first six months of their deployment, the 10th Mountain Division had 93 vehicles destroyed by roadside bombs. In the last six months, just one.

Marines fighting in the once wild west of al Anbar province have not suffered a combat death since October 8.

Bethesda Naval Hospital used to care for as many as 50 wounded Marines at a time; today there are 10.

Have we reached a turning point in the war or is this just another phase?

"I think we're in another phase," says Paul Hughes of the U.S. Institute for Peace. "I don't think we can say we've reached a turning point that the outcome is now guaranteed."

Hughes worries most about Shiite militias loyal to the radical cleric Moktada al Sadr. He has declared a cease fire but it is only temporary.

"If there is some indicator that we can trust them to not come back out into the streets and fire on American or Iraqi security forces again, then I think we can say we've reached a turning point," Hughes says.

And will Iraqis fend for themselves once the surge ends and American troops start to leave? December is the month the drawdown begins in earnest.

[reagan4ever]

Well, Murtha thinks it''s "working", which has got to be killing you libs, hittin'' ya'' right where you live, eh?

Quick, before it''s too late, have MoveOn.Org attack Murtha''s patriotism! There''s the ticket. You can say that he''s part of the vast right wing conspiracy. Or, wait, another brainstorm from the left --- Maybe you can run Alec Baldwin against him in the primaries and send him packing like you did Lieberman --- oops, okay, maybe that didn''t turn out quite the way you''d planned but, hey, if you''re a liberal, results don''t matter anyway, it''s what feels good that counts. So .. get after Murtha, now!

Here''s another suggestion: Pray (or affirm) that more violence erupts in Iraq, and more death, and less reconciliation and unity. That oughta jack the poll numbers for Kucinich!

Man, I''ll tell ya'', there''s nothing like success on the battlefield to infuriate the modern American liberal.

[glaswolf]

The more the US military works with local Warlords, the more certain and peaceful things will become. The turning point was in the shift of our focus away from the judeo christian right NeoCon cross cultural social engineering, which sought to install and arm folks whose rhetoric was agreeable to the religious bigoted NeoCon base. Martial alliances must be restricted to the Martial, nations can only be built by their own natural martial leadership and the Warlords who support them. Guns in battle are more important than gods, anytime metal jackets fly.

[feelfree1]

We can always count on David Martin to parrot the nonsense generated by the Pentagram.

[feelfree1]

Leave it to a Regime dead-ender to see relevance in the thousands of violent crime victims in the U.S., to the 1 million+ dead Iraqis that have resulted from the illegal fraud-based war.

[feelfree1]

Here is a lesson in journalism, to the yellow-hacks at CBS News:

"A commentary by Walter Cronkite and David Krieger"

"The American people no longer support the war in Iraq. The war is being carried on by a stubborn president who, like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, does not want to lose. But from the beginning this has been an ill-considered and poorly prosecuted war that, like the Vietnam War, has diminished respect for America."

"The invasion of Iraq was illegal from the start. Not only was Congress lied to in order to secure its support for the invasion of Iraq, but the war also lacked the support of the U.N. Security Council and thus was an aggressive war initiated on the false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Nor has any assertion of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida proven to be true."

"...It is the way that the Iraq war will also be brought to an end. The only question is whether it will be now, or whether the war will drag on, with all the suffering that implies, to an even more tragic, costly and degrading defeat. We will be a better, stronger and more decent country to bring the troops home now."

http://tracypress.com/content/view/12485/2244/

[feelfree1]

Related:

"...Iraq worse off now than under Saddam"

"MINNEAPOLIS %u2014 A St. Cloud State University professor who recently returned from his native Iraq painted a grim picture Friday of the situation in that country and a bleak prediction for its future."

"Abbas Mehdi, who teaches sociology and anthropology, spoke at a forum at the University of Minnesota%u2019s Humphrey Institute."

"Mehdi left Iraq in 1977 after he was placed under a death sentence for his opposition to Saddam Hussein. He returned last year for the first time in almost 28 years. He worked as an adviser to a group helping to rebuild Iraq%u2019s infrastructure, and later took a cabinet position in the government."

"Mehdi described a country in complete turmoil where corruption is rampant, conditions are worse than during Saddam Hussein%u2019s rule and people lack basic services such as water and electricity."

%u201CIraq was living a nightmare during Saddam, and now they are living another, a different nightmare,%u201D Mehdi said."

www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071130/NEWS01/111300050/1001

[middleman8]

Ya, sure this is nothing but a bunch of happy horse s--t.

[feelfree1]

Re: "There were 28 combat dead in November."

There are 38 more dead Americans in Iraq this month, and 3 "other" dead "coalition" members, for a total of 41 dead soldiers; dead for no good reason.

That tops last months troop death toll, and the final count is not yet in.

[prinzowhales]

Anything that leads to less death and misery is welcome. But, the key to discerning whether or not we are enjoying a military success is the ratio of deaths to road traffic and patrols and CBS and its Regime handlers have not deigned to inform us as to whether or not there has been an increase of decrease in American road traffic.

A political deal with the Sunnis is the lynchpin of upon which this relative ''peace'' hangs. I hope the Kurds are prepared to pay the price...