Fighting Smarter In Iraq
David Ignatius has done some nice reporting from Iraq this week, with this morning’s article titled Fighting Smarter In Iraq. Here’s some of the positives he’s reporting:
A brutal stress test came on Feb. 22, when Sunni insurgents destroyed a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra. For a moment, Iraq seemed to be slipping toward civil war, but the Iraqi army performed surprisingly well. In many areas Iraqi forces, backed up by overwhelming U.S. firepower, helped restore order. “You never know the tipping point until you’re past it,” says Gen. George Casey, the commander of American forces here. With many other U.S. and Iraqi officials, he hopes Samarra may have been such a tipping point, for the better.
———-
But it would be a mistake to think that nothing is changing. The country is fragile, but it hasn’t splintered apart. I visited two bases where you can see the new U.S. strategy begin to take hold. The first was at Taji, straddling the Tigris River north of Baghdad, where the American 4th Infantry Division is gradually handing off responsibility to Iraqi units. After the Samarra bombing, enraged Shiites killed two Sunni clerics, and there was a danger that the reprisal killings could escalate.Tensions eased after an Iraqi brigade commander, a Shiite, rolled his armored vehicles into the Sunni stronghold of Tarmiya and told local imams that his men would protect their mosques against Shiite attacks, and that in return, they must control Sunni militants. “He laid down the law,” remembers Col. Jim Pasquarette, who commands U.S. forces in the area. The crisis gradually eased there, with U.S. forces mostly remaining in the background.
Fred Barnes made a great point last night on Brit’s roundtable about Ignatius’ reporting, namely, why haven’t we heard any of this from the reporters stationed in Baghdad? Good question Fred. I’d love hearing their answer. I’d bet there’d be more bobbing and weaving in their answers than there was in an Ali fight.
The truth is that much of the ‘reporting’ has been awful. We all recall Ralph Peters’ mocking the press when he said
“I’m trying. I’ve been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I’m looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can’t find it. Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view’s clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn’t give me the right skills. And riding around with the U.S. Army, looking at things first-hand, is certainly a technique to which The New York Times wouldn’t stoop in such an hour of crisis.”
When I read that paragraph, I couldn’t stop laughing at the NY Times and other assorted non-truth-tellers. I’m not calling them liars, mind you. I’m just saying that, all too often, they haven’t gotten their facts straight. Proof of that is their reporting 1,300 dead in a Baghdad morgue when the final official count was 379.
It was later learned that reporters took others’ word on it. Considering the level of violence they thought was going on, I can’t bring myself to saying they intentionally lied.
More people are finally getting the real picture in Iraq. More people are figuring out that Slow Joe Biden is the one who doesn’t have a clue on troop strength. More people are putting the pieces of the puzzle together and seeing the entire picture. To be certain, there’s still much that needs to be done. But to paint a picture that’s all doom and gloom won’t work anymore, thanks in large part to Col. Peters, with an honorable mention for Mr. Ignatius.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing