Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Iraqi Army More Cohesive Than Democratic Senators”

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February 17, 2006

Iraqi Army More Cohesive Than Democratic Senators

Hatched by Dafydd

I'll bet you thought we'd totally forgotten about this category here at Big Lizards; or else you might have fretted that there wasn't any "good news" to be found. Not so! The only reason we haven't done one of these posts in a while is that they're Sachi's province, and she's been traveling on behalf of the war effort for the past several weeks.

Well, she's still traveling; but she e-mailed a heads-up to me, and I'm writing the post that she would have written, were she here.

As most of you know, Bill Roggio returned from his own peregrinations in Iraq; he's ensconced back in his hutch at the Fourth Rail, madly blogging away. His most recent post (as I write this) is a piece of most wonderfully excellent and amazingly good news indeed... though hardly unexpected, except (of course) among the Left, who never expect (or tolerate) any good news.

The Iraqi Army has improved markedly in the past five months; and bear in mind, this is improvement over and above their stunning advances of the previous six.

The Iraqi Amy is taking over a larger portion of the battlespace, as well as conducting independent security operations. Major General Richard Lynch recently stated Iraqi Army units are involved in over 70% of the operations, and are conducting 25% of these operations independently.

For a force that didn't even exist a couple of years ago -- and whose predecessor was an overrated, thuggish tool of the King of Spades' oppression -- this is absolutely unprecedented. They're not at the level of American forces yet... but then, truth be told, neither is anyone else, not even the Brits.

Jason Vansteenwyk points to slides of the progress of Iraq Army in taking control of regions. The Increase in responsibility from September of 2005 to January of 2006 is significant. And Mr. Vansteenwyk also points out the Iraqi troops are securing the most densely populated regions of Iraq.

Roggio links to a CentCom release that details two Iraqi Army operations last week, one of which netted over a hundred terrorists captured (including 25 on the Iraqis' most-wanted list) and two terrorists killed. The new Iraqi Army is taking control of more and more territory; and as Roggio wrote (paraphrasing Vansteenwyk), they now control the most densely populated parts of the country... meaning a very large percentage of Iraqis live on land that is completely controlled by Iraqis: an Iraqi government, Iraqi police and courts, and protected by the Iraqi Army.

The United States is slowly but steadily reducing its footprint in Iraq. Even on most missions where American troops work side by side with Iraqis, the Americans are in an advisory capacity only. It's almost the mirror image of Vietnam: in that war, we began with advisors and ended up running the war; in this operation, we began by doing all the fighting and heavy lifting, but now we're mostly just advising the Iraqis... who are quite capable in nearly all cases of managing their own areas of operation.

And the Coalition can couple this huge success with:

Our recent, highly effective efforts to persuade previously militant Sunni groups to lay down their arms and join the political process;

The replacement of the old chief judge in the Saddam Hussein trial with one who is actually moving the case along and not allowing the former dictator to engage in his usual tantrums and antics;

The tremendous work we've done in ridding the Iraqi police of corruption, cronyism, and militant Shia;

And the amazing success we've had completing a number of rebuilding projects

Take it all together, and we're well on our way to succeeding at the most incredible program of "nation building" anybody has ever attempted, probably greater even than what we did in Germany and Japan, considering the state of things when we started rebuilding Iraq.

And while the Iraqi Army is sticking together tighter and fighting as a unit, 41 of the 44 Democrats jumped ship yesterday and made a fool out of their conference leader, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Caesar's Palace). I know which group I'd prefer to have at my back.

And that can only be Good News!

(Wow... Link City, here we come. Too bad linking oneself doesn't count in the TTLB Ecosystem!)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 17, 2006, at the time of 11:25 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Sachi

Thank you Dafydd. I could not have written better myself. hahaha

I will continue to keep eye on good news from Iraq, afghanistan and other places where U.S.troops are making differences.

The above hissed in response by: Sachi at February 18, 2006 11:33 AM

The following hissed in response by: RBMN

I read, or heard, that Iraqis with contraband in their home--at least the smarter ones--would much rather have American troops doing the nighttime sweep of their home, rather than having Iraqi troops do it. Americans just arrest them and take them to prison for having RPG's under their bed. Some of the Iraqi troops deal with it in Iraq's "more traditional" way--"bang...bang...bang...bang...stop running, or I'll shoot!...bang...bang...awwwh, too bad...."

The above hissed in response by: RBMN at February 18, 2006 1:15 PM