Michael Yon, providing the best coverage from Iraq, posts his latest dispatch:
"Almost everyone (by now) must have heard about the “lazy” Iraqi parliament members who, like so many Neros fiddling while Rome burns around them, are taking a month off. Yet comparatively few Americans will ever hear or read about IA Scorpion Company Commander Captain Baker; or Iraqi entrepreneur and community catalyst, “Tonto”; or the Mayor of Baqubah, who summoned the courage to step out of the shadow of al Qaeda and fight to get his constituents a warehouse-sized stockpile of food.......
There may be little progress on political goals crafted in America, to meet American concerns, by politicians who have a cushion of 200 years of democracy. Washington might as well be on the moon. Iraqis don’t respond well to rules imposed from outside their acknowledged authorities, though I have many times seen Iraqi Police and Army of all ranks responding very well to American Marines and soldiers who they have come to respect, and in many cases actually admire and try to emulate. Our military has increasing moral authority in Iraq, but the same cannot be said for our government at home. In fact, it’s in moral deficit because many Iraqis are increasingly frightened we will abandon them to genocide. The Iraqis I speak with couldn’t care less what is said from Washington but large numbers of them pay close attention to what some Marine Gunny says, or what American battalion commanders all over Iraq say. Some of our commanders could probably run for local offices in Iraq, and win. To say there has been no political progress in Iraq in 2007 is patently absurd, completely wrong and dangerously dismissive of the significant changes and improvements happening all across Iraq. Whether or not Americans are seeing it on the nightly news or reading it in their local papers, Iraqis are actively writing their children’s history......
In the interests of balance, I offer this dispatch about an Iraqi Army mission I observed earlier this year and Mosul as concrete evidence of the dramatic improvement in Iraqi Security Forces that I have seen firsthand........
While the violence in Mosul is serious enough to impede the full restoration of most of the basic city services, it has not slowed the progress of the Iraqi Police and Army toward a high level of self-sufficiency. High enough to make Mosul an unsafe place for terrorists to live. Because the violence continued, clearly some terrorists had moved out into surrounding villages, and were commuting to work in Mosul.
The Iraqi and American commanders wanted to swoop out and surround three of the villages this morning, to look for bad guys. In fact, the Iraqis planned their own mission. I recall LTC Eric Welsh telling his subordinate commanders not to interfere with the Iraqi commanders. Welsh wanted the Iraqis to make their own mistakes and improve by doing.
The mission we were about to do would have been impossible in early 2005. Impossible because the Iraqi Army would have been incapable of doing their part and probably would have done something very bad, like show up two hours late and without gas in their trucks. They would have been like the Keystone Kops, only shooting each other on accident. It would have been impossible even late in 2005, because they lacked the equipment and seasoned manpower to pull it off, although by late 2005 they were doing missions and raids independently......"
The Iraqi and American commanders wanted to swoop out and surround three of the villages this morning, to look for bad guys. In fact, the Iraqis planned their own mission. I recall LTC Eric Welsh telling his subordinate commanders not to interfere with the Iraqi commanders. Welsh wanted the Iraqis to make their own mistakes and improve by doing.
The mission we were about to do would have been impossible in early 2005. Impossible because the Iraqi Army would have been incapable of doing their part and probably would have done something very bad, like show up two hours late and without gas in their trucks. They would have been like the Keystone Kops, only shooting each other on accident. It would have been impossible even late in 2005, because they lacked the equipment and seasoned manpower to pull it off, although by late 2005 they were doing missions and raids independently......"
Large numbers of Iraqis detested us after the prisoner abuse stories, and some over-the-top attacks on Fallujah, for example. But through time, somehow the American military has managed to establish a moral authority in Iraq. It’s not the only authority, but the military has serious and increasing moral clout. In the beginning, our influence flowed from guns, or dropped from the wings of jets. Later it was the money. Today, the clout still is partially from the gun, and definitely the money is key, but there is an intangible and growing moral clout and it flows from an increasing respect among Iraqis for our military. Washington has no moral clout in Iraq. Washington looks like a circus act. The authority is coming from our military. The importance of this fact would be difficult to overstate." (Seems like the Iraqis have figured out that REMF's are worthless)
Read the rest of Michael Yon's dispatch (He has a good write-up on Iraqi Colonel Noradeen):http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/three-marks-on-the-horizon.htm
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