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Lieutenant
Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 213
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 Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 7:57 am Post subject: On third anniversary, Iraq war makes sense - Mobile Register |
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At least some in the press are telling the truth! From the Mobile Register:
Mobile Register
Note: Long URL converted to hyperlink/me#1
| Quote: | On third anniversary, Iraq war makes sense
Saturday, March 18, 2006
/drop/3/tTHE WAR in Iraq began three years ago on Sunday. New developments in Iraq and new evidence from there help bolster the case that the original decision to go to war was the right one.
Columnist David Ignatius of The Washington Post, for instance, is no fan of the Bush administration.
On Feb. 15 he wrote a column about the administration's "arrogance of power" in which he said "this administration has jumped the tracks. What worries me most is the administration's misuse of intelligence information to advance its political agenda. For a country at war, this is truly dangerous."
But on Thursday of this week, reporting from Baghdad, Mr. Ignatius wrote that "you have to pinch yourself when good things seem to be happening. But there are unmistakable signs here this week that Iraq's political leaders are taking the first tentative steps toward forming a broad government of national unity that could reverse the country's downward slide."
On Friday, he concluded a new column with: "It's a few years late, but the new U.S. strategy is moving in the right direction."
In the third stage This assessment effectively tracks what administration officials are saying in Washington about how the coalition effort in Iraq is moving from the third stage of a four-part master plan to the fourth, final stage, at the end of which success is supposed to have been achieved.
From stage one of "liberation" to stage two of "occupation" through stage three of "partnership," the plan is advancing to stage four of Iraqi "self-reliance," marked by constitutional government, effective use of Iraqi forces to control their own country, and eventually normal diplomatic relations with the United States and, presumably, the whole world community.
The next year, say Bush administration figures, will be devoted to institution-building in Iraq. Even rank-and-file Sunni Muslims, the angry minority (so far) in Iraq, seem to be "buying in" more and more to the new system.
Part of that buy-in was evident in the Dec. 15 elections where in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province some 86 percent of eligible voters participated, compared to only 2 percent in that province in January 2005.
The number of operational Iraqi military units has grown spectacularly.
To quote one administration chart: "In July 2004, there were no operations Army division or brigade headquarters. Today there are eight brigade headquarters and 37 battalions that have assumed battle space."
A battalion consists of about 800 troops. A brigade can range from 3,000 to 5,000.
All told, report the Bush folks, "In November 2004, there were about 115,000 trained and equipped Iraqi security forces. Today there are over 227,000 trained and equipped security forces."
Read on here: Mobile Register
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