Iraq Surge: Mission Accomplished!

According to John McCain and Joe Lieberman, anyway. I'm still waiting to see how the Gazette responds to the reality on the ground in Iraq. They also supported the surge last year.

Here's McCain and the ex-Democrat all Democrats love to hate:

The Surge Worked

By JOHN MCCAIN and JOE LIEBERMAN

It was exactly one year ago tonight, in a televised address to the nation, that President George W. Bush announced his fateful decision to change course in Iraq, and to send five additional U.S. combat brigades there as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy and under the command of a new general, David Petraeus.

At the time of its announcement, the so-called surge was met with deep skepticism by many Americans -- and understandably so.

61% were against it. But of course, George Bush don't read no stinking polls.

After years of mismanagement of the war, many people had grave doubts about whether success in Iraq was possible. In Congress, opposition to the surge from antiwar members was swift and severe. They insisted that Iraq was already "lost," and that there was nothing left to do but accept our defeat and retreat.

...garbage....

Instead, conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge. Whereas, a year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was entrenched in Anbar province and Baghdad, now the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001.

3,000 Marines headed for Afghnistan. Um guys, check your inbox, please.

Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency's core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst -- prompting Osama bin Laden to call them "traitors."

Myth: The US troop surge stopped the civil war that had been raging between Sunni Arabs and Shiites in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Fact: The civil war in Baghdad escalated during the US troop escalation. Between January, 2007, and July, 2007, Baghdad went from 65% Shiite to 75% Shiite. UN polling among Iraqi refugees in Syria suggests that 78% are from Baghdad and that nearly a million refugees relocated to Syria from Iraq in 2007 alone. This data suggests that over 700,000 residents of Baghdad have fled this city of 6 million during the US 'surge,' or more than 10 percent of the capital's population. Among the primary effects of the 'surge' has been to turn Baghdad into an overwhelmingly Shiite city and to displace hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the capital.

As al Qaeda has been beaten back, violence across the country has dropped dramatically. The number of car bombings, sectarian murders and suicide attacks has been slashed. American casualties have also fallen sharply, decreasing in each of the past four months.

2007 was the most deadly year for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Iraqi civilian deaths were also their highest in 2007.

....wishful thinking....

The question we face, on the first anniversary of the surge, is no longer whether the president's decision a year ago was the right one, or if the counterinsurgency strategy developed by Gen. Petraeus is working. It is.

NOT: General David Petraeus’ “surge” in Iraq, measured in terms of number of attacks and of US and Iraqi fatalities, has been a success, more so than many of its supporters had thought possible. But it is also true that the window of opportunity provided by this success in increasing “negative peace” (eg, reductions in hostilities) has not been maximised by Iraqi leaders’ promised efforts to achieve reconciliation among the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions (“Iraq surge brings a lull in violence but no reconciliation”, January 7).

As the surge should have taught us by now, troop numbers matter in Iraq. We should adjust those numbers based on conditions on the ground and the recommendations of our commanders in Iraq -- first and foremost, Gen. Petraeus, who above all others has proven that he knows how to steer this war to a successful outcome.

....I couldn't stand the platitudes any more....

Mr. McCain is a Republican senator from Arizona. Mr. Lieberman is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut.

And as I speak, President Bush is trying to spin his meager efforts at Mideast Peace into a legacy saving can-kick just as he did with the Iraq war. Our next president, the American public, Iraqis and Afghanis will be stuck the next 20 years cleaning up his mess as George Bush retires to Crawford - where he always should have been - to cut brush like the fake Ronnie Reagan he is.