California Conservative

Earlier this week, I wrote about Maj. Gen. Robert Scales telling Brit Hume about the improving Iraqi military. Today, Gen. Scales puts that report into a Washington Times op-ed.

Here’s some news that’s sure to startle the Agenda Media:

We visited the Iraqi 9th Mechanized Division located in Taji a few miles north of Baghdad in one of the hottest and most contested regions of Iraq. The unit was activated last October and has yet to form completely. It is commanded by Gen. Bashar, a thirty-year veteran and, like many patriotic, innovative and self-reliant officers, a victim of Saddam Hussein’s brutality. The general created the division by calling up many of his old regular-army comrades. Three quarters are veterans who have been recruited from every province and ethnicity in Iraq. The division’s motto is, appropriately, “Iraq first.” Gen. Bashar built his division from a junkyard. In less than a year his soldiers picked through acres of destroyed Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers to patch together a fleet of over 200 operational fighting vehicles.

This type of on-the-ground type of reporting is depressingly missing from the Agenda Media. In this paragraph, we’re given specific details about an Iraqi Army division that’s creating itself literall from the scrapheap. Creating “200 operational fighting vehicles” “from a junkyard” is a feat of monumental proportions.

It’s also important to note that this division “have been recruited from every province and ethnicity in Iraq.” This information ridicules the Agenda Media that often queries whether Iraq will have a theocracy and/or a civil war. This information tells me that the different factions are quite capable of interacting with each other in the most difficult circumstances. That blows out of the water much of the negative commentary heard on the network’s nightly news.

As upbeat as that report is, Gen. Scales’ report gets even more optimistic. Here’s another big chunk of great news:

Has the increased presence of Iraqi units been effective? Remember the infamous and terribly deadly BIAP Road? I had a quiet dinner about 200 yards from the highway one night and drove a five-mile portion of it, something no sane American visitor would have done last summer. There hasn’t been a serious incident on the road since June. That’s when the Iraqi Special Police Corps and the 6th Division established permanent traffic control points along all its interchanges. The Iraqis pushed a defensive perimeter back far enough from the highway to prevent terrorists from gaining access to plant bombs and position snipers. Is everything perfect? No, of course not. Is the 9th Division capable of taking on a major ground unit in open combat? Not yet. But Iraqi soldiers don’t have to meet our qualitative readiness standards. They just have to be better than the insurgents, and they already are.

That’s the information that you won’t see in the Agenda Media’s reporting. The last time I heard a report that got this information wrong? Last night. This isn’t information that’s impossible to get. Getting the information requires something that hasn’t happened recently, specifically, it requires embedding the reporter with the troops rather than accepting the milquetoast sattelite feed. It’s big news that the BIAP road, which was a highway of death 10 months ago, is now under control. Under perfect control? No. Solidly under control? You betcha!!!

When was the last time that E.J. Dionne or Maureen Dowd mentioned this? Would this information be great ammunition against the media morons and the Ted Kennedys who talk endlessly about quagmires? You betcha!!! It’d make them look like idiots. I’m all for making demagogues look like idiots every chance I have. We shouldn’t tolerate their nonsense. EVER.

The most poignant and telling moment for me during my visit to the 9th Division was spontaneous and unscripted. Gen. Bolger happened to see Gen. Kassim for the first time since his wounding. They both embraced and simultaneously whispered “brother” each in their respective languages. Such sentiments can only be shared by soldiers and only by those who have forged their mutual trust in the crucible of real war. Like a good wine, making an army takes time.

Still think that the Iraqi military doesn’t care about defeating the enemy and protecting their countrymen and women? If you do, open your eyes and listen with your ears. It might change your perspective and it’d be based on reality.

Cross-posted at Let Freedom Ring

This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2005 at 9:08 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Military, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.