CNN's Michael Ware downplays the importance of the Surge.

[moondust]

On American Morning today he said the real reasons for the decrease in violence in Iraq started in 2006 with putting the Sunnis on the payroll and...get this...some al Qaeda too! Then the maze of high walls separating enclaves in Baghdad and cooperation from al Sadr further cut the violence. He didn't seem to think the extra 30,000 troops had much to do with it.

[speedoo]

1. Michael Ware is one of the best "experts" on Iraq.

This is very interesting, wish I had seen it.

[moondust]

2. Transcripts-->>

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ltm.html

I don't know how long it takes them to post.

[speedoo]

5. Thanks. nt

[Jennicut]

3. He is usually pretty fair and straightforward.

He actually almost got murdered while covering Iraq, some insurgents took him hostage but then let him go.

[RethugAssKicker]

4. He's correct... I'm surprised they let him speak...

One other thing too.... All the soldiers pretty much stay in the Green Zone....much less patrols than before.

[alaskandal]

6. NBC talks about Manhattan Project all over again...THE SURGE

The Surge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2mB_DsTLSs

[moondust]

7. That was mentioned this morning.

Ware seemed to downplay that as well. Of course if it as secret as Woodward claims it is then a CNN reporter probably wouldn't know much about it.

:hi:

[leftchick]

8. Much more like Operation Phoenix

IMO....http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Vietnam6475_CIAHits.html

Vietnam 1964 - 1975
from the book The CIAs Greatest Hits
by Mark Zepezauer


Following the deaths of JFK and Ngo Dinh Diem, it was only a matter of time before US combat troops became involved in Vietnam. Within days of the JFK assassination in November 1963, President Johnson had reversed JFK's plan to withdraw US personnel by the end of 1965. As LBJ told one impatient general, "Just get me elected; you can have your damn war."

In August 1964, the CIA and related military intelligence agencies helped fabricate a phony Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam. This supposed act of North Vietnamese aggression was used as the basis for escalating US involvement.
In March 1965, US troops began pouring into Vietnam. Nine years of backing the French, another nine years of backing Diem and two more years of CIA operations had failed. From this point on, the US Army took over the war effort.

Since the Vietnamese people overwhelmingly supported their own National Liberation Front (the NLF, or "Viet Cong" as we called it), the Army began destroying villages, herding people into internment camps, weeding out the leaders and turning the countryside into a "free-fire zone" (in other words, shoot anything that moves).

The CIA still had a role to play, however. Called Operation Phoenix, it was an assassination program plain and simple. The idea was to cripple the NLF by killing influential people like mayors, teachers, doctors, tax collectors-anyone who aided the functioning of the NLF's parallel government in the South.

Many of the "suspects" were tortured and some were tossed from helicopters during interrogation. William Colby, the CIA official in charge of Phoenix (he later became director of the CIA), insisted this was all part of "military necessity"- though he admitted to Congress that he really had no idea how many of the 20,000 killed were Viet Cong and how many were "loyal" Vietnamese.
Colby's confusion was understandable, since Phoenix was a joint operation between the US and the South Vietnamese, who used it as a means of extortion, a protection racket and a way to settle vendettas. Significantly, the South Vietnamese estimated the Operation Phoenix death toll at closer to 40,000. Whatever the exact number, there's no question the killings were necessary-after all, we were trying to prevent a blood bath.

[moondust]

9. Here's the transcript.

Aired September 9, 2008 - 08:00 ET

ROBERTS: CNN's Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware has been living the past six years in the middle of that war, and joins us now with his perspective. So what do you think of what he's (Woodward) saying?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I mean, let's say that these (INAUDIBLE) teams as they called have come into effect. The first thing to say is, well, about time.

I mean, on the ground you've seen the lack of coordination, as the left hand of one agency has not worked with the right hand of another agency within the American effort. But by and large to suggest that anything like this being done now has been the major reason for the decline in violence is a bit rich.

I mean, the U.S. subcontracted out an assassination program against al Qaeda way back in early 2006. And this was conceded by the then chief of military intelligence in Baghdad and by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad himself. That's what broke the back of al Qaeda.

Then, when America put 100,000 plus insurgents on the U.S. government payroll, including members of al Qaeda, that not only took them out of the field, but it also let them run their own assassination programs against the Iranian-backed militias.

ROBERTS: So, it sounds like assassination was the real part of the program here. But was that the only thing that worked? What about the addition of these troops, these neighborhood stations that were set up that it all kind of work together.

WARE: It does work together. But, I mean, the key to the downturn in violence that we're seeing now is not so much the surge of 30,000 troops in itself. What it's been is the segregation of Baghdad into these enclaves. It's been cutting a deal with Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Iranian-back militias, and primarily it's been putting your enemy on your payroll.

The Sunni insurgents and many members of al Qaeda, that's what's brought down the violence. And this is your American militia. The counter balance to the Iranian militias. So if these new teams out there with new technology, great, but they're riding the wave of previous success.

ROBERTS: Interesting. Michael Ware, thanks so much for that. Appreciate the insight perspective.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0809/09/ltm.03.html

[riverdeep]

10. Not to mention that 'surge' itself is just a semantics game.

The test is simple, and built into the concept of a surge: Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started? The answer is no.

(snip)

So, the best that we can hope for, in terms of American troops risking their lives in Iraq, is that there will be just as many next July—and probably next January, when time runs out—as there were a year ago. The surge will have surged in and surged out, leaving us back where we started. Maybe the situation in Baghdad, or the whole country, will have improved. But apparently it won't have improved enough to risk an actual reduction in the American troop commitment.

"No, the surge is not a success."
http://www.slate.com/id/2184890/