Great interview in Newsweek with General Petraeus that everyone should read. Here is one question where General Petraeus confirms what I have already said about “the surge”:
Could there have been an Awakening without the surge?
Well, there could have been an Awakening, but you couldn’t have exploited it … And by the way, in the course of our surge of 30,000, the Iraqis surged by over 130,000 actually, and climbing. The Sons of Iraq [armed Sunni neighborhood volunteers], the Awakening, that’s another 99,000 now. You know, we had tribal Awakenings all the way back to early 2005, actually, but they ended up with their heads chopped off. The one that endured, of course, was the one that sprung up with Sheik Sattar out by Ramadi in October of 2006. You started to see a downward trend in violence but the [military] clearance of Ramadi didn’t take place until mid-March through mid-April of 2007. And in a number of cases you had to clear it first, or at least you had to be started on that road before they would dare to raise their hand and say that they were willing to help protect their country, or their neighborhood.Beyond that, I think there was an intellectual construct. You know, it wasn’t just “the surge.” It wasn’t just extra forces. It was the kind of conceptual guidance that was put out at the same time that we employed the additional forces … starting with a focus on securing the population, which can only be done by living among them.
[Another] intellectual construct was … an explicit idea that we have to identify and separate the irreconcilables from the reconcilables, but that you’re not going to kill your way out of an insurgency; you got to reconcile with as many as you can. That helps guide you, and that leads to, at the local level, political reconciliation and Awakenings, and then also you’re looking to see, as the security situation allows, people start focusing on laws and budgets and all the rest of that. It takes a very comprehensive approach. [Newsweek]
Make sure to read the whole thing.
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:mrgreen:...
12:33 pm on August 28th, 2008 1
When the Sunnis got themselves between a rock (the marines) and a hard place (Al Qaeda), they knew the rock wasn’t going to move. While they knew it would be difficult to extridite themselves from the hardplace, in the end it was thier only choice.
5:08 am on August 29th, 2008 2
This is a play waiting for the final act, where we pull out of Iraq, the Iraqis drop their arms, shed their uniforms and run away like striped-ass baboons, and Al Qaeda takes over Taliban style.
That place and it’s people are not worth one more American life.
11:18 am on August 29th, 2008 3
You may have a point, however if Iraq collapses it will be due to its own governments failure to include all Iraqis into the government and not just the Shias. The upcoming elections will be a major test of what direction Iraq will take. It is incumbant for the US at this time to stress that these elections must take place, and that it be fair and monitored by outside sources. Sunnis who are refugees outside Iraq must be given the right to vote as well.9 (Est. 4 million) The greater the diversity of candidates the better. I’m not sure the current Iraqi government can deal with another free election. As I believe any Iraqi who is currently in power will allow the people to take that power from him without a dishonest fight.