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Subject: After the Surge - It Wasn't Supposed to Work
swhitebull    9/8/2007 12:05:42 AM
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/after_the_surge.html Thoughtful piece from - appropriately named - the American Thinker swhitebull
 
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Herc the Merc       9/8/2007 12:40:22 AM

link


Thoughtful piece from - appropriately named - the American Thinker


swhitebull

Isn't it dangerous when some people think instead of do as they are told.
 
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Herc the Merc       9/8/2007 12:45:02 AM
Nobody said the surge wouldn't work in the active areas --it was expected to work temporarily and in the "surged" area.
Saddam also had surge and purge and still he got caught, the purge we cannot do the surge is nothing but a temporary relief in the sands of time. There will never be peace in the middle east until nukes come into play--so far the only mathematical guarantee of peace MAD.
 
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jastayme3       9/8/2007 5:27:25 AM

Nobody said the surge wouldn't work in the active areas --it was expected to work temporarily and in the "surged" area.

Saddam also had surge and purge and still he got caught, the purge we cannot do the surge is nothing but a temporary relief in the sands of time. There will never be peace in the middle east until nukes come into play--so far the only mathematical guarantee of peace MAD.



Peace in the Middle East? My you're ambitious. I never knew that was our goal. Isn't pacifying Iraq enough?
 
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Plutarch    Sunni Sheik killed today   9/13/2007 7:55:35 PM

Key anti-al-Qaida sheik slain in Iraq

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago

The assassination Thursday of the leader of the Sunni Arab revolt against al-Qaida militants dealt a setback to one of the few success stories in U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, but tribesmen in Anbar province vowed not to be deterred in fighting the terror movement.

American and Iraqi officials hoped the death of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha would not stall the campaign to drive al-Qaida in Iraq from the vast province spreading west of Baghdad and reconcile Sunnis with the Shiite-led national government.

It was the biggest blow to the Anbar tribal alliance since a suicide bomber killed four anti-al-Qaida sheiks as they met in a Baghdad hotel in June. Abu Risha himself had escaped a suicide attack in February. But those attacks and others did not stop the campaign against al-Qaida.

Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Awakening Council who met with President Bush just 10 days earlier, died when a roadside bomb exploded near his home just west of Ramadi as he returned from his farm, police Col. Tareq Youssef said. Two bodyguards and the driver also were killed.

Moments later a car bomb exploded nearby but caused no casualties. An Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the second bomb was intended as a backup in case Abu Risha escaped the first blast.

The attack occurred one year after the goateed, charismatic, chain-smoking young sheik organized 25 Sunni Arab clans into an alliance against al-Qaida in Iraq, seeking to drive the terror movement from sanctuaries where it had flourished after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

No group claimed responsibility for the assassination, but it was widely assumed to have been carried out by al-Qaida, which already had killed four of Abu Risha's brothers and six other relatives for working with the U.S. military.

U.S. officials credit Abu Risha and allied sheiks with a dramatic improvement in security in such Anbar flashpoints as Fallujah and Ramadi after years of American failure to subdue the extremists. U.S. officials now talk of using the Anbar model to organize tribal fighters elsewhere in Iraq.

Abu Risha's allies as well as U.S. and Iraqi officials insisted the assassination would not deter them from fighting al-Qaida, and the tribal alliance appears to have gained enough momentum to survive the loss of a single figure, no matter how key. Late Thursday, Abu Risha's brother, Ahmed, was selected to replace him as head of the council.

Still, the loss of such a charismatic leader is bound to complicate efforts to recruit more tribal leaders in the war against the terror network. Two Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter, said the assassination sent a chilling message about the consequences of cooperating with the Americans.

"This is a criminal act and al-Qaida is behind it," said Sheik Jubeir Rashid, a senior member of Abu Risha's council. "We have to admit that it is a major blow to the council. But we are determined to strike back and continue our work. Such attack was expected, but this will not deter us."

Ali Hatem al-Sulaiman, deputy chief of the province's biggest Sunni tribe, said that if "only one small boy remains alive in Anbar, we will not hand the province over to al-Qaida."

Islamic extremist Web sites praised the killing in a flurry of postings, one of which called Abu Risha "one of the biggest pigs of the Crusaders," meaning the Americans. Another said Abu Risha would spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan "in the pits of hell."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who had been reluctant to support Abu Risha, expressed "great sorrow" over the killing, but said he was confident "that this criminal act will strengthen the determination of Anbar people to wipe out the terrorists."

During a visit Sept. 3 to al-Asad Air Base, Bush hailed the courage of Abu Risha and others "who have made a decision to reject violence and murder in return for moderation and peace."

"I'm looking forward to hearing from

 
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Plutarch    Sunni Sheik killed today   9/13/2007 7:57:26 PM
Correction---Sorry the other sheiks were blown up in June, still a long way to go.
 
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swhitebull       9/14/2007 7:33:02 AM
Symposium: The Success of the Surge  
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, September 14, 2007

 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/media/4CDF1CEC-779C-4699-A123-A8992F4D9219/fe5aa988-1706-4a1c-8fc9-0ce0f7457ece.gif" border=0>

Recent reports suggest that http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/950rsadr.asp href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/950rsadr.asp">the surge in Iraq is working and that the war is very much winnable. Gen. David Petraeus confirmed this reality on Monday in his testimony before Congress, affirming that the buildup in U.S. troops in Iraq has met its military objectives "in large measure."

 

The anti-war crowd, meanwhile, which includes leaders of the Democratic Party, continues to voice the theme of defeat and to press for American withdrawal from Iraq.

 

To discuss the success of the surge, and the mentality of those who yearn for our failure in Iraq, Frontpage Symposium has assembled a distinguished panel. Our guests are:

 

Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, the co-author with Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely of Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror. He is a retired Air Force Fighter Pilot who has been a Fox News Military Analyst for the last four and a half years and continues to appear regularly on Fox. He returned from his second visit to Iraq in December, 2005.

 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/media/4CDF1CEC-779C-4699-A123-A8992F4D9219/219aa454-df6b-4349-a47f-d44cb34f509e.jpg">

 

Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and a senior fellow at http://www.defenddemocracy.org/ href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/">the Foundation for the Defense of Democracieshttp://www.defenddemocracy.org/ href="http://www.defenddemocracy.org/">. He prosecuted the Blind Sheik and his organization for seditious conspiracy in 1995.

 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/media/4CDF1CEC-779C-4699-A123-A8992F4D9219/3c3fec75-75a3-43fb-b349-7b18159e793f.gif" border=0>

and

Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc. In 1989, Ceausescu and his wife were executed at the end of a trial where most of the accusations had come word-for-word out of Pacepa's book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895267462/102-2740221-8059325?v=glance&n=283155 href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895267462/102-2740221-8059325?v=glance&n=283155">Red Horizons, republished in 27 countries. Pacepa’s new book, http://www.amazon.com/Programmed-Kill-Harvey-Kennedy-Assassination/dp/1566637619/ref=sr_1_2/103-6260968-8101453?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183013830&sr=8-2 href="http://www.amazon.com/Programmed-Kill-Harvey-Kennedy-Assassination/dp/1566637619/ref=sr_1_2/103-6260968-8101453?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183013830&sr=8-2">Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination, is due out in November.

 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/media/4CDF1CEC-779C-4699-A123-A8992F4D9219/b329fc45-2e5d-40bd-bef9-5bcb0d42b2a2.gif" border=0>

FP: Andy McCarthy, Mike Pacepa and Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.

Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, let’s begin with you.

 

Tell us your thoughts about the recent developments in Iraq and what you find significant in Gen. Petraeus’ testimony.

McInerney: The surge is working. However, there is still a long way to go but it means that Gen Paetraeus’s Counter Insurgency Strategy is viable and in the long term can bring victory.

 

Victory means that we can have a stable Iraq with a moderate government but not necessarily a Jefferson Democracy. Before I go further I am delighted to be on this panel with such esteemed colleagues and look forward to the discussion.

 

The most important recent developments have been the enorm

 
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swhitebull    It's NOT Working   9/30/2007 6:01:58 PM
from  Powerlineblog.com
 
 
More good news from Iraq

Things are going from bad to worse for al Qaeda in Iraq. The Jerusalem Post reports that coalition forces have killed another top al Qaeda leader -- Abu Usama al-Tunisi, the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle.

According to Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, recent coalition operations have helped cut in half the previous flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, which had been at about 60 to 80 a month. Through the increased level of operations conducted by our enlarged ground force, we've been able to push militants into the remote parts of the north and south of the country. Now, additional operations have been going after those pockets of fighters.

Anderson concludes that al Qaeda is "very broken up, very unable to mass, and conducting very isolated operations."
 
swhitebull
 
 
Combat Deaths Continue to Drop

It looks as though September will have the lowest U.S. death toll in Iraq in 14 months. September also represents the fourth consecutive monthly decline in deaths of U.S. service personnel.

It seems remarkable that a strategy involving a more aggressive use of a larger number of troops could result in fewer fatalities, but that appears to be the case. I don't know how to explain it other than by the hypothesis that the surge has been even more successful in degrading enemy capabilities than has commonly been recognized.

 
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Plutarch    The Surge   10/3/2007 9:23:25 PM
So these numbers came out a few days ago with a more accurate picture of the number of insurgents/terrorists (or as some like to call them...bandits). 

19,000 insurgents killed in Iraq since '03
More than 19,000 militants have been killed in fighting with coalition forces since the insurgency began more than four years ago, according to military statistics released for the first time.

The statistics show that 4,882 militants were killed in clashes with coalition forces this year, a 25% increase over all of last year.

The increase in enemy deaths this year reflects more aggressive tactics adopted by American forces and an additional 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by the White House this year.

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched several large offensives aimed at crippling al-Qaeda since the arrival of more troops starting in February. The U.S. military says, however, there has been an increase in suicide attacks in recent days.

The size of the insurgency in Iraq has been difficult to measure and is fluid, making it hard to determine what impact the deaths have had on the insurgency in Iraq.

Last year, Gen. John Abizaid, then commander of military forces in the region, estimated the Sunni insurgency to be 10,000 to 20,000 fighters. He said the Shiite militia members were in the "low thousands." The U.S. military hasn't publicly provided any recent estimates.

There are 25,000 detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq, according to the military. The numbers of enemy killed and detained would exceed the estimate given last year of the size of the insurgency.

Since the insurgency began after Baghdad fell in spring 2003, 19,429 militants have been killed in clashes with coalition forces, statistics show. The numbers do not include enemy killed during the invasion.

The statistics, provided at USA TODAY's request, were retrieved from a coalition database that tracks "significant acts." Militants are identified in the database because they are linked to "hostile action," said Capt. Michael Greenberger, a Freedom of Information Act officer in Baghdad. There is no way to independently verify the data.

"The information in the database is only as good as the information entered into it by operators on the ground at the time," Greenberger said. "Follow-up information to make corrections is done whenever possible."

The U.S. military rarely discusses the numbers of enemy dead, fearful of raising parallels with the Vietnam War when the U.S. military's reliance on "body counts" led to allegations of inflated figures because of political pressure to show results.

Today, U.S. commanders consider the number of enemy deaths a poor measure of progress in an insurgency and say there is no pressure to exaggerate. "The big difference is the command climate in Vietnam encouraged inflation," said T.X. Hammes, a retired Marine colonel and insurgency expert. "The general command climate (in Iraq) is: 'Don't exaggerate.' "

The military's new counterinsurgency manual emphasizes political and economic solutions to eliminate the conditions that breed militants. Those actions are considered more decisive than combat.

"You can't kill them all," Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of the American division responsible for northern Iraq, said in a recent interview.

The insurgency has been a mixture of Sunni groups, such as al-Qaeda, and Shiite militia extremists.

The enemy casualty numbers also reinforce the one-sided nature of battles on occasions when militants attempted to directly confront American forces.

The deadliest month for militants was August 2004 when thousands of militia fighters loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr clashed with American forces in Najaf in southern Iraq. That month, 1,623 militants were killed. The U.S. military lost 53 troops in fighting during t

 
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swhitebull    Following the Money - and Pulling the Plug   10/4/2007 12:24:50 PM
from captainsquartersblog.com:
 
 

They Followed The Money To The Golden Dome

The Iraqi Army, with Americans along as advisors, captured two high-value al-Qaeda figures on Tuesday. One of them served as AQI's banker, pushing more than $50,000 per month into the terrorist network and possibly as much as $100 million during his tenure with the network:

Iraqi forces, with U.S. Special Forces as advisers, detained two individuals believed to be linked to the al-Qaeda in Iraq criminal network Oct. 2, near Baghdad.

During one of the operations, Soldiers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division detained a suspected al-Qaeda financier in Kindi. The extremist financier is suspected of traveling to foreign countries to acquire financial support for terrorist activities and is suspected of supplying more than $50,000 to al-Qaeda each month. He is believed to have received $100,000,000 this summer from terrorist supporters who cross the Iraq border illegally or fly into Iraq from Italy, Syria and Egypt.

The terrorist is linked to financing cells in Doura, Tarmiyah and Baqubah, and uses a leather merchant business as a front to smuggle weapons and explosives from surrounding countries. Intelligence shows he has stores in Fallujah, Syria and Jordan.

 

That might hurt AQI more than the loss of their leader, al-Tunisi, last month. The network already has had its lines of communication thoroughly disrupted and their ability to coordinate curtailed. A lack of funds coming into the network will mean even fewer resources to rebuild those connections. That translates to fewer attacks of declining effectiveness, great news for Iraqis and Americans.

It also could lead to more captures. According to the report, this man had responsibility for 30-40 terrorists, and paid them $3,000 for each successful attack. That indicates that (a) the primary motivation for the terrorists might be money rather than ideology, and (b) he can identify a large number of cells in the field. In fact, the announcement itself within two days of his capture might indicate that he's already talked, and that the Iraqis and the Americans have started rolling up those cells already. They will also be focusing on those international connections and tracking down the terror supporters who sent the cash.

And there's a bonus for this: the detainee also financed both Golden Dome attacks in Samarra, which nearly touched off a civil war. He also has direct responsibility for the deaths of three US soldiers in al-Mansour this past April. He's a great catch, and without doubt the Iraqis and Americans know exactly what to do with him.

Let's see how long it takes for this to get reported in the mainstream news media.

 
 
 
swhitebull - AQI is being drawn, quartered, and eviscerated, their funds drying up, and no where to run but out of the country. Saudi imams issue fatwah to NOT to go to Iraq to become jihadis, Sunni leadership turning against AQI, lower US and Iraqi casualties in spite of stepped-up operations, violence down everywhere, AQI leadership decimated - therefore SURGE isn't working.
 
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swhitebull    Lowest US Casualties in    10/4/2007 12:28:51 PM
: href="http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:rSE8GKA2V0cJ:" target="_blank">http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:rSE8GKA2V0cJ:>
 
 
 
swhitebull - last week, from Breitbart, via Agence France-Presse.
 
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