Jackson Jambalaya

The surge might be working after all. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist John Burns of The New York Times discusses his recent three-month tour in Iraq:
I think there’s no doubt that those extra 30,000 American troops are making a difference. They’re definitely making a difference in Baghdad. Some of the crucial indicators of the war, metrics as the American command calls them, have moved in a positive direction from the American, and dare I say the Iraqi point of view, fewer car bombs, fewer bombs in general, lower levels of civilian casualties, quite remarkably lower levels of civilian casualties. And add in what they call the Baghdad belts, that’s to say the approaches to Baghdad, particularly in Diyala Province to the northeast, to in the area south of Baghdad in Babil Province, and to the west of Baghdad in Anbar Province, there’s no doubt that al Qaeda has taken something of a beating.
HH: Now when General Petraeus returns in September to make his report, do you expect Petraeus to be completely candid with the American people about the good news and the bad news in Iraq?
JB: I think there’s no doubt that he’ll be candid. As a matter of fact, every time I’ve spoken to him about it, he talks about the need to be forthright, and as he puts it, he said we’re not going to be putting lipstick on a pig. I think that’s a fairly, that’s military jargon which most Americans will understand. David Petraeus is a man who’s had a remarkably distinguished military career, and he is very clear that he thinks his responsibilities lie not to the White House alone, but to the White House and the Congress conjointly, and through them to the American people. I don’t think that this is just a profession, a claim. I think he really intends that, and he’s been very careful not to make commitments at the moment as to what he’s going to say, though we may guess it. And I think he’s going to say that the surge is having its effects, it hasn’t turned the tide of the war, there’s been too little time for it, and I think he and Ambassador Crocker, who will be his partner in that September report, are going to say one thing very clearly, and that is a quick, early withdrawal of American troops of the kind that is being argued by Nancy Pelosi, for example, would very likely lead to catastrophic levels of violence here. And in that, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will be saying something which is pretty broadly shared by people who live and work here, I have to say. The removal of American troops would very likely, we believe from all indications, lead to much higher, and indeed potentially cataclysmic levels of violence, beyond anything we’ve seen to date. ....."
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=5bdb3520-d829-4fdb-a2bc-6611d80faba4

I'm not surprised by this. Petraeus is one of the few generals in the army that understands COIN and his strategy is in accordance with its principles. The U.S. Army War College in 2002 accurately predicted what would happen for the most part in a study on a post-Saddam Iraq. The surge follows the strategy pretty closely. As I've said before, I think now Bush and crew of ivory tower idiots have realized that they have been banging their heads against a wall and are letting the real military run the show, not the perfumed princes in the army bureaucracy. The problem is that Bush and Rumsfeld screwed the pooch so well on Iraq and have angered the American people so much that the military faces the increasing risk of having the plug pulled on what is becoming a successful operation. Hopefully that will not happen.