September 7, 2006

Good Hunting Over the Weekend

Headlines in the various wire services during the weekend were still the same old recycled Democratic talking points: Another U.S. soldier killed in action! Setbacks, quagmire! The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have failed... it's time to declare defeat and head to Okinawa!

Sometimes I feel the media ghoulishly enjoy counting bodies, especialy our own guys and gals. But even AP could not ignore this remarkable achievement of Canadian troops in Afghanistan:

NATO: 200 Taliban, 4 Canadians Killed

PASHMUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Warplanes and artillery pounded Taliban fighters hiding in orchards Sunday during a big Afghan-NATO offensive that the alliance said killed more than 200 militants in its first two days. Four Canadian soldiers also were killed.

Oh, Canada! The Taliban has attacked the NATO forces from time to time; but it always ends the same way: lopsided defeat. I don't understand why they keep on doing thing that don't work... unless it's just a mass expression of "suicide by soldier."

Given that the terrorists believe "death is a promotion" (as Ralph Peters puts it, paraphrasing Cal Thomas), we really do need to consider the possibility that the Taliban knows their attacks will fail, and they'll die in droves -- yet they continue anyway as an act of martyrdom.

Meanwhile in Iraq, we had quite a weekend, according to CENTCOM. I wonder if you saw these headlines in the antique media:

Iraqi and US Security Forces Capture 30 Insurgents, 38 Suspected Insurgents, Over Weekend Ops in Western al-Anbar Province

Iraqi police and soldiers, along with U.S. Marines and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team 7, detained 30 confirmed insurgents and 38 suspected insurgents over the weekend throughout the western Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

Over the weekend, Iraqi and Coalition forces carried out numerous operations throughout Iraq, and the results were spectacular:

• "In Rawah, 50 miles east of the Iraqi-Syrian border, Iraqi police identified and detained 18 of the 38 captured suspected insurgents."
• "In Hit, 70 miles northwest of Ramadi, Iraqi and U.S. soldiers detained one known insurgent and 10 suspected insurgents Sunday."
• "Through a variety of counterinsurgency operations Saturday and Sunday, Iraqi police, Iraqi soldiers, and U.S. Marines captured 27 known insurgents and four suspected insurgents in the Haditha Triad, a cluster of three cities -- Haditha, Barwanah, and Haqlaniyah."
• "In Sa'dah, a town just east of the Iraqi-Syrian border, U.S. Marines captured six more suspected insurgents Saturday. Marines also discovered an ordnance cache near the border on Saturday. The cache consisted of 120 mm rockets, 155 mm rockets, and 122 mm rockets."

We've got even more good news from Camp Fallujah, according to Maj.Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, spokesman for Multi-National Force -- Iraq.

During recent clearing operations in Adhamiyah - as part of Operation Together Forward - Iraqi forces and Soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Multi-National Division – Baghdad, captured an improvised-explosive device-making facility. The find included a supply of bomb-making components, three mortar caches and engineering manuals.

On the heels of success in Adhamiyah, Marines from Regimental Combat Team 5, moving as part of Operation Rubicon, recently uncovered hundreds of weapons and combated insurgents in running gun battles in the town of Mushin, west of Habbaniyah.

If you'll recall, I promised that some of the security responsibilities were going to be handed over to Iraqis this month; but there was a brief delay. The elite media portrayed this as a "setback" for President Bush, implying the hand-over was never going to happen.

But of course, it turned out to be just what the Pentagon said it was: a brief miscommunication about certain duties and responsibilities. And now it's gone through with no problem:

Iraqi Soldiers Take the Lead

Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division transferred responsibility of security for the majority of the Kirkuk Province to two battalions of the Iraqi Army during a ceremony at an Iraqi military compound just outside of Kirkuk, Aug. 31.

“With this ceremony, we complete the transfer of security responsibilities from our friends, the Coalition Forces, to our Brigade,” said Maj. Gen. Anwar, commander of the 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division. Two battalions in the multi-ethnic (Arab, Kurdish, Turkomen) 2nd Brigade had previously assumed security responsibilities in other sectors of the Kirkuk Province. This ceremony, with the final two battalions assuming responsibility, demonstrates the readiness of Iraqi Army forces in the province....

The event marks the third time this year that Coalition Forces have transferred responsibility to Iraqi Security Forces in the 1st BCT’s area of operations in and around the Kirkuk Province. The ceremony now places the majority of the province in Iraqi control. The city of Kirkuk and the village of Hawijah remain under the control of coalition forces.

And finally, the Coalition (which means the United States) has begun the process of handing over complete control of the New Iraqi Army, which we built, to the Iraqi government, which was elected by the Iraqi people. Today we handed over control of one of the ten Iraqi divisions, plus the Iraqi Air Force and Navy:

Iraq Takes Over Command of Armed Forces

On Thursday, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a document taking control of Iraq's small naval and air forces and the 8th Iraqi Army Division, based in the south....

Handing over control of the country's security to Iraqi forces is vital to any eventual drawdown of U.S. forces here. After disbanding the remaining Iraqi army following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, coalition forces have been training the new Iraqi military.

The nine other Iraqi divisions remain under U.S. control, with authority gradually being transferred. U.S. military officials said there was no specific timetable for the transition but U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Wednesday the Iraqis have "talked about perhaps two divisions a month."

AP, however, was far more enthused about a row that erupted between Sunni and Shiite members of the Iraqi parliament, which began when Sunni legislator Saleh al-Mutlaq accused the Shia of seeking "the division of Iraq." AP devotes more than half the story to that irrelevant non-news, instead of the hand-over in the headline.

(And I'm certain it's only a coincidence that such uncontrollable outbursts of unrelated, spurious copy in news stories -- "Spurrette's Syndrome," as Dafydd calls is -- always act to undermine any good news for President Bush, the Republicans, and the country. It's just "the luck of the draw" that Spurrette's Syndrome never interrupts or undermines bad news!)

So, folks, things are looking good. Let's stay the course, even if that means tacking back and forth a bit, to respond to changing conditions and enemy tactics.

Good hunting.

Hatched by Sachi on this day, September 7, 2006, at the time of 4:47 PM

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