The Iraq Embarassment: The Times of London

It's been interesting watching the news as Iraq has been improving... it's been getting more and more difficult to find any reports, other than independent reports from Michael Yon and other freelance reporters in Iraq.

It looks like the Times of London has noticed the same thing:

The Petraeus Curve

Is no news good news or bad news? In Iraq, it seems good news is deemed no news. There has been striking success in the past few months in the attempt to improve security, defeat al-Qaeda sympathisers and create the political conditions in which a settlement between the Shia and the Sunni communities can be reached. This has not been an accident but the consequence of a strategy overseen by General David Petraeus in the past several months. While summarised by the single word “surge” his efforts have not just been about putting more troops on the ground but also employing them in a more sophisticated manner. This drive has effectively broken whatever alliances might have been struck in the past by terrorist factions and aggrieved Sunnis. Cities such as Fallujah, once notorious centres of slaughter, have been transformed in a remarkable time.

Indeed, on every relevant measure, the shape of the Petraeus curve is profoundly encouraging. It is not only the number of coalition deaths and injuries that has fallen sharply (October was the best month for 18 months and the second-best in almost four years), but the number of fatalities among Iraqi civilians has also tumbled similarly. This process started outside Baghdad but now even the capital itself has a sense of being much less violent and more viable...

The current achievements, and they are achievements, are being treated as almost an embarrassment in certain quarters. The entire context of the contest for the Democratic nomination for president has been based on the conclusion that Iraq is an absolute disaster and the first task of the next president is to extricate the United States at maximum speed. Democrats who voted for the war have either repudiated their past support completely (John Edwards) or engaged in a convoluted partial retraction (Hillary Clinton). Congressional Democrats have spent most of this year trying (and failing) to impose a timetable for an outright exit.

Me? I think the big news in Iraq is that Iraq was turned around because of two men: General Petraeus and Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld. It is now obvious that Rumsfeld's strategy of a "light footprint" (meaning few troops on the ground) allowed Al Qaeda to thrive and move throughout Iraq unimpeded causing spiralling violence and civilian casualties. Once Rumsfeld resigned, it gave Bush the ability to change strategies and in the end appointing General Petraeus. His "surge" strategy provided the additional troops to stop Al Qaeda and help turn native Iraqi insurgents to our side. If President Bush had gotten ridden of Rumsfeld sooner, the story of the Iraq War could have been very different.