Iraq violence rages on but US coalition optimistic

[Barrett808]

Iraq violence rages on but US coalition optimistic
by Dave Clark

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Bomb and gun attacks have killed at least 17 Iraqis as US and British commanders expressed cautious optimism that a plan to restore peace to Baghdad was working.

Last month, before the latest security plan got fully underway in the capital, there was a record number of insurgent attacks across

Iraq, but US leaders now believe that August's figures will buck the upward trend.

"The Battle of Baghdad will determine the future of Iraq," the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in an article in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

The diplomat wrote that the Baghdad security clamp-down was "already beginning to show positive results," noting that the crime rate in the formerly lawless southern Baghdad district of Dura had dropped by 80 percent.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060823/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrest

[marmar]

1. Optimistic for newspaper and television interviews...

I suspect what they REALLY believe is something entirely different.

[Kagemusha]

3. Their choices of what districts to cover looks like picking sides.

Picking sides in a civil conflict (let's call it civil conflict... it's not full war, yet)inevitably has consequences. In the short term, crime certainly would go down; no common criminal wants to be mistaken for an insurgent and shot. Longer term it gets messy. Besides, wherever US troops aren't, criminals will flock. And that's just the criminals, to say nothing of insurgent activity.

[warrens]

2. Yeah, if we keep tens of thousands of troops on patrol 24/7

It MIGHT cut down the number of attacks by 20 or 30 percent. That's a big IF, though. We can't keep it up; our troops will break down, and the Iraqi troops will just bugger off home eventually.

[rodeodance]

4. so, now we are the long long term peacekeepers?