Senator Webb, back from Iraq, questions impact of 'surge'

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: Chicago Tribune

by David Lerman

One day after returning from his first visit to Iraq, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb called again for ``robust regional diplomacy” and suggested the impact of President Bush’s troop surge has been overstated. Appearing (Sunday) on NBC’s Meet the Press, the former Navy secretary and Marine combat veteran credited U.S. troops for helping increase security. But Webb, an early and vocal critic of the Iraq war, showed no sign of changing his view after a two-day trip to Iraq and Kuwait.

The trip included a visit to Anbar province in western Iraq, where his son Jimmy served in combat last year. Administration officials and supporters have pointed to a lessening of violence in Anbar -— and a decision by some Sunni insurgents there to side with U.S. forces against al Qaeda terrorists -- as an indication of progress in Iraq. But Webb suggested the realignment of Sunni forces had little to do with the surge of U.S. troops and was more a reaction to a growing frustration with al Qaeda terrorists.

``This was happening before the surge began, well before the surge began,” Webb said. ``And it would have been happening if there wasn’t a surge.”

The increasing sense of security in Iraq has allowed Iraqi refugees to begin returning to the war-torn country, according to recent news reports. But Webb described the troop surge, as he did from its inception this year, as a ``tactical adjustment” that ``didn’t change the over-arching strategy of what we are trying to do.”

Webb, a freshman Democrat who has won outsized attention in Congress on the Iraq war because of his military background, said several positive factors on the ground in Iraq have conspired to create ``a very important interval” for the United States. With the easing of tensions in Anbar, restraint from an influential Shiite leader in Baghdad and interest by Turkey in avoiding a Kurdish guerrilla war on its border, Webb said the time is right to launch an intensive round of diplomacy. ``That’s the only way that we’re going to be able to take advantage of the quality of the work that our military people have done,” Webb said. ``And we’re still waiting.”...

Read more: http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2007/12/webb_back_from_iraq_questions.html#more

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Commander AWOL & chickenhawk republicon cronies are lying to you." - Eye witnesses

"They lied you into the war, and they are still lying to you. Are you going to believe a bunch of chickenhawks draft-dodging homelanders like Bush, Cheney, Limbuagh, O'Reilly, Hannity, and their ilk?"

- People who honestly KNOW what is going on in Iraq

[TwilightGardener]

2. Webb is spot-on.

[williesgirl]

3. That's my Senator! Can't wait for Mark Warner to join him in Jan 09. rec'd

[gateley]

4. I'm a BIG Webb fan! nt

[ixion]

5. thank you, Sen. Webb, for telling the truth

:applause:

[harun]

6. Media is portraying the surge as "fixing" Iraq, the truth needs

to be told. Dem's shouldn't give them a free pass on this lie.

[donkeyotay]

7. Here's a key player in the success of the surge - Chalabi

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/20893.html

Chalabi back in action in Iraq
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, October 28, 2007
Baghdad

"The key is going to be getting the concerned local citizens — and all the citizens — feeling that this government is reconnected with them," Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander here, said Saturday. Chalabi "agrees with that."

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki named Chalabi as head of the services committee, a consortium of eight service ministries and two Baghdad municipal posts, that is tasked with bringing services to Baghdad, the heart of the surge plan.

Chalabi "is an important part of the process," said Col. Steven Boylan, Petraeus' spokesman. "He has a lot of energy."

Unless the government steps in, U.S. military commanders stationed in small outposts throughout Baghdad fear their rebuilding programs and other efforts to weaken one-time al Qaida and militia bastions will collapse as soon as troops leave. If that happens, those groups will dominate the neighborhoods again, they say.

[donkeyotay]

8. And we do remember this fellow, don't we?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/30/wiraq130.xml

Moqtada al-Sadr announces ceasefire in Iraq
By Damien McElroy
Last Updated: 2:55am BST 31/08/2007


Sadr announced yesterday that an order to stand down had been distributed to his loyalists following the deaths of more than 50 Shia Muslim pilgrims during sectarian fighting in the holy city of Karbala on Tuesday.

The surprise statement regarding his notorious Mahdi army, which is responsible for much of Iraq's sectarian blood-letting, not only caught British and American commanders off-guard but appeared to have surprised Baghdad officials too. Mowaffak al-Rubbaie, Iraq's national security adviser, said Baghdad would only welcome the move if Sadr's lieutenants stop attacks and their attempts to "blow up" the Iraqi government.

"I will see on the ground what is going to happen," he said. "It is good news if it is true. If it happens it will reduce violence in the country a great deal."...

...Asked if the unexpected order meant no attacks on American troops, as well as a ban on Shia infighting, a senior Sadr aide said: "All kinds of armed actions are to be frozen, without exception."

[donkeyotay]

9. Here's an article on the Anbar Awakening from June of 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001453_pf.html

Tribal Coalition in Anbar Said to Be Crumbling
U.S.-Backed Group Has Fought Al-Qaeda in Iraq

By Joshua Partlow and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 11, 2007; A11

U.S. military leaders hailed the creation of the nearly nine-month-old Anbar Salvation Council, first known as the Awakening, as one of the most important developments in the four-year war, signaling that insurgents and the local population in Anbar, which is overwhelmingly Sunni, have begun to see al-Qaeda in Iraq as their worst enemy, rather than the United States and its allies.

Since the tribes began working with U.S. forces to resist al-Qaeda in Iraq -- and since they began receiving significant amounts of weapons and vehicles -- violence in the province and deaths of U.S. soldiers there have fallen dramatically.