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Bob51
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Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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 Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 9:57 pm Post subject: Seems obvious |
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| Quote: | Colonel Ferrell, for his part, cautioned that all the good progress in Arab Jabour would go to waste if his troops were pulled out prematurely. “We would go back to where we were before, with the fear of the people and the impact al-Qaeda was having right there in our battle space,” he said.
Local Iraqis touched by the surge of US troops seem grateful for the increased security, but some are scared of getting too close to the Americans in case they leave.
“I cannot help the coalition because I worry that if I do and the soldiers go then the terrorists will come back and kill me,” said Mokdat Ahmed Shahib, a 40-year-old security guard, who lives in a village near Patrol Base Murray. |
From The Times
July 14, 2007
Soldiers of the surge: the vital battle to win hearts and minds
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2072894.ece |
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Bob51
Seaman
Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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| Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | The almost tragic irony of the situation is that the strategy in Iraq now, designed by General David Petraeus, is the most plausible to have been implemented in the past four years. As we report today, US units have moved out of their fortified bases in predominantly Sunni areas and embedded themselves with the local population. Combined with a much more thorough effort to win over “hearts and minds”, results have been achieved, if at a high cost in army casualties. Relations between the US forces and the Sunni minority are better now than at any point since Saddam Hussein was deposed. Tribal sheikhs are actively cooperating with the US against al-Qaeda. Atrocities are still occurring in and around Baghdad but not at the dire rate seen before the “surge” was inaugurated.
There is the basis here for a counter-insurgency drive that will deliver not in weeks but not as long as decades either. The US military cannot be expected to maintain a force of this strength engaged in this form of combat indefinitely. It does not need to. It only has to stay until the point where sufficiently large numbers of the Iraqi Army and police units are in place and there is a political settlement in Baghdad that all sides deem acceptable. If the will is there, much of what needs to be accomplished could be realised in several months, not several years. |
| Quote: | | There are reasons for real hope in Iraq. That hope will be lost if the country is prematurely abandoned. |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article2072647.ece |
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