As the general's own counter-insurgency manual states repeatedly......

[Flabbergasted]

The Guradian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2166558,00.html

Telling It Like It Isn't
Tuesday September 11, 2007

snip

As the general's own counter-insurgency manual states repeatedly, an effective campaign has to work on several fronts simultaneously, not least on the hearts and minds of those who supported the insurgency. Is the general winning the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis? Not according to an opinion poll of 2,000 Iraqis commissioned by the BBC, ABC and Japan's NHK. About 70% believe that security has deteriorated in the areas covered by the surge, a finding corroborated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which reports that 60,000 Iraqis a month are fleeing their homes in fear of their lives, an increase of 10,000 since the surge started. Another damning statistic from the BBC poll: a clear majority, 57%, express support for attacks on coalition forces.

Nor is it clear whether the claimed military gains can be sustained. This much was admitted by the general, who cited the danger of predicting future events in Iraq as an argument against withdrawing forces too precipitously. Gen Petraeus made much of the turnaround achieved in Anbar province, once the cockpit of the insurgency, where attacks against coalition forces have dropped from 13,500 a year ago to 200 in last month. In reality, the turnaround in Anbar was achieved not by the deployment of 30,000 extra troops but by the decision of the Sunni tribal chiefs to turn against an al-Qaida umbrella organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq. Anbar might be held up as showing the power of US forces to fashion peace in Iraq, but it could just as well demonstrate its opposite: the power of local Sunni forces, the same ones that supported Saddam, to turn on and turn off the violence. Once US forces leave, re-armed Sunni militias could equally resume their offensive against the Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki. Nor does the relative quiet in Baghdad show anything other than the fact that the ethnic cleansing has stopped, because the mixed areas of the capital have already been ethnically cleansed.

The general will get the extra months he wants. But it is equally clear that the high water mark of the deployment of US power in Iraq has passed. Whether by degrees, or more dramatically, US forces will start to withdraw. They will do so not, as they should, in the interests of the Iraqi people, but according to America's political timetable. They will do so not because a US president has owned up to responsibility for launching a catastrophic war. He has instead abdicated it, by leaving the pullout of US troops as a matter for his successor.

[EVDebs]

1. At one point the Gen mentioned concrete barriers; reminded me of Strategic Hamlets all over again !