The US is is now winning the war straight from the Horses mouth. Good thing we didn't give up like the Democrats wanted. Just in time for the election too. Now that he can't run on a failed Iraq, I think Obama is toast.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080726/...inning_the_war

By ROBERT BURNS and ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writers
Sat Jul 26, 7:08 PM ET



BAGHDAD - The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost. Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.

This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press this past week there are early indications that senior leaders of al-Qaida may be considering shifting their main focus from Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.

Ryan Crocker, the ambassador to Iraq, told the AP on Thursday that the insurgency as a whole has withered to the point where it is no longer a threat to Iraq's future.

"Very clearly, the insurgency is in no position to overthrow the government or, really, even to challenge it," Crocker said. "It's actually almost in no position to try to confront it. By and large, what's left of the insurgency is just trying to hang on."

Shiite militias, notably the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have lost their power bases in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. An important step was the routing of Shiite extremists in the Sadr City slums of eastern Baghdad this spring — now a quiet though not fully secure district.

Al-Sadr and top lieutenants are now in Iran. Still talking of a comeback, they are facing major obstacles, including a loss of support among a Shiite population weary of war and no longer as terrified of Sunni extremists as they were two years ago.

Despite the favorable signs, commanders are leery of proclaiming victory or promising that the calm will last.

The premature declaration by the Bush administration of "Mission Accomplished" in May 2003 convinced commanders that the best public relations strategy is to promise little, and couple all good news with the warning that "security is fragile" and that the improvements, while encouraging, are "not irreversible."

Iraq still faces a mountain of problems: sectarian rivalries, power struggles within the Sunni and Shiite communities, Kurdish-Arab tensions, corruption. Any one of those could rekindle widespread fighting.

But the underlying dynamics in Iraqi society that blew up the military's hopes for an early exit, shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, have changed in important ways in recent months.

Systematic sectarian killings have all but ended in the capital, in large part because of tight security and a strategy of walling off neighborhoods purged of minorities in 2006.

That has helped establish a sense of normalcy in the streets of the capital. People are expressing a new confidence in their own security forces, which in turn are exhibiting a newfound assertiveness with the insurgency largely in retreat.

Statistics show violence at a four-year low. The monthly American death toll appears to be at its lowest of the war — four killed in action so far this month as of Friday, compared with 66 in July a year ago. From a daily average of 160 insurgent attacks in July 2007, the average has plummeted to about two dozen a day this month. On Wednesday the nationwide total was 13.

Beyond that, there is something in the air in Iraq this summer.

In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.

Now a moment has arrived for the Iraqis to try to take those positive threads and weave them into a lasting stability.

The questions facing both Americans and Iraqis are: What kinds of help will the country need from the military, and for how long? The questions will take on greater importance as the presidential election nears, with one candidate pledging a troop withdrawal and the other insisting on staying.

Iraqi authorities have grown dependent on the military after more than five years of war. While they are aiming for full sovereignty with no foreign troops on their soil, they do not want to rush. In a similar sense, the Americans fear that after losing more than 4,100 troops, the sacrifice could be squandered.

commanders say a substantial American military presence will be needed beyond 2009. But judging from the security gains that have been sustained over the first half of this year — as the Pentagon withdrew five Army brigades sent as reinforcements in 2007 — the remaining troops could be used as peacekeepers more than combatants.

As a measure of the transitioning role, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond says that when he took command of American forces in the Baghdad area about seven months ago he was spending 80 percent of his time working on combat-related matters and about 20 percent on what the military calls "nonkinetic" issues, such as supporting the development of Iraqi government institutions and humanitarian aid.

Now Hammond estimates those percentage have been almost reversed. For several hours one recent day, for example, Hammond consulted on water projects with a Sunni sheik in the Radwaniyah area of southwest Baghdad, then spent time with an Iraqi physician/entrepreneur in the Dora district of southern Baghdad — an area, now calm, that in early 2007 was one of the capital's most violent zones.

"We're getting close to something that looks like an end to mass violence in Iraq," says Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus on war strategy. Biddle is not ready to say it's over, but he sees the mission shifting from fighting the insurgents to keeping the peace.

Although Sunni and Shiite extremists are still around, they have surrendered the initiative and have lost the support of many ordinary Iraqis. That can be traced to an altered approach to countering the insurgency — a Petraeus-driven move to take more troops off their big bases and put them in Baghdad neighborhoods where they mixed with ordinary Iraqis and built a new level of trust.

Army Col. Tom James, a brigade commander who is on his third combat tour in Iraq, explains the new calm this way:

"We've put out the forest fire. Now we're dealing with pop-up fires."

It's not the end of fighting. It looks like the beginning of a perilous peace.

Maj. Gen. Ali Hadi Hussein al-Yaseri, the chief of patrol police in the capital, sees the changes.

"Even eight months ago, Baghdad was not today's Baghdad," he says.

The war that was started by a war criminal on lies that was un-necessary and that made the world less safe.

Yeah, whatever. A little convenient that they are supposedly winning it now, just a few months before the election, hmm?

http://www.military.com/news/article...=1186032310810

But this war is pointless, the whole reason was to make the world safer by getting rid of WMDS...However, there were no WMDS, and all we did was kill alot of people (on both sides) and piss off even more people (terrorists)...Making the world more dangerous...

Iraq before invasion- Stable, with corrupt leader (A leader we put in power and supported for decades mind you)

Iraq during invasion- Complete anarchy

Iraq now- Presumably becoming stable and now with a puppet government who will most likely turn out just as corrupt as Saddam but it will be okay b.c. they will listen to us...

Does this really seem any better?

And better yet...

America puts Saddam in power in the 60s creating a horribly oppressive regime for 40 some years, then America changes it's mind and annihilates the country killing many and destroying the entire infrastructure. Not to mention the Iraq sanctions in the 90s which directly resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children...

Who's at fault for any plight that Iraq has had to experience? Whose fault Saddam existed in the first place? This is basically America coming in trying to clean up it's own mess and fucking everything up even more and now, NOW, after 5 years were starting to see progress. And by progress I mean we have moderate control....How can we not be proud

The only way to make up for the havoc we've caused is to completely stabilize Iraq and leave it the fuck alone as sovereign nation but thats not going to happen. Were going to leave troops there, control the government, the economy and basically anything in that region (i.e. oil)...Iraq is going to become a permanent base and home away from home for America b.c. of its perfect geopolitical position.

The War did come at a huge economic cost, but if it results in a stabilized, semi-democratic Iraq that can be used a template for the Westernization of the rest of the Middle East, I'd say it was semi-worth it. I'm sure there was a more elegant way to achieve that end, but whatever.

But the USA can't really afford another interventionist war and the American people understand this, and that is why Obama is most definitely not toast.

Well the violence after the war in Iraq was implemented was a hundred fold. So unless the decrease was comparable then that statement is a weak argument at best.

And just so you will know, many of the brave that died in Iraq died fighting because they believed there were nuclear arms there that were a threat to the USA. And Bush used the war for political purposes to get re-elected.

And can you point to any country in the middle east that is looking to Iraq as a model to use to democratize itself. Hell Iraq was a much safer place before Bush used his big gun to implement his great democracy there.

ANd Bush has shown that democracy does not work too fuckn good in this country. Thanks fpor that but the hearings in the Hous/Conyers justice committee show that a war criminal sits in the oval office.

People in this country need to wise up and find the truth.

Shifting from mainly combat to mainly rebuilding the shit we already blew up is winning?

How many four star generals did Cheney have to fire before he found one willing to spout this crap?

What was it they said last time? Oh yes...

"Mission accomplished"

It's easy enough to see the tactic being employed here. Throw around a lot of troops just before leaving office so that the enemy is forced to minimalize its tactics, declare victory, then leave office and force your successor to shoulder all the blame for the impending fallout.

McCain and Obama have my sympathy.

Well, the mission [i]was[i] accomplished.

No one is saying that now. Everyone is talking about making sure the Iraqis can take our place so that violence can't increase when we leave.

You're saying that you think Bush is going to leave Iraq before he leaves office?