The withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi cities today marks a turning point for the war in Iraq, and leaves me with mixed feelings about the current situation and the war overall.

I see it as a success that the security situation has improved so much that US forces basically aren’t needed to protect the urban populations anyway. Whether it was an arbitrary date or not, it sort of turned out to be an event-driven one — at least in terms of security. I can’t express the pride I feel for the sacrifice and adaptability of the troops who made this success possible.

I remember being at a small outpost on the outskirts of Balad in July of 2003. My photographer colleague and I hired two seats in a convoy of Suburbans heading out of Amman to a hotel in Baghdad, where we based ourselves for six weeks to cover the beginnings of the occupation.

We went on a raid one night out of the small base — which had no electricity, no air conditioning, no refrigeration — with a group from the 4th ID based on intel gained from a short trip into town by the company commander who slipped in with his translator (terp) wearing a dishdash and driving in a captured taxi cab. This was two months after the “mission accomplished” speech and I was amazed at the initiative of the troops there that early on.

I went to Sadr city then too. The fetid stench of sewage and rotten trash wafting into the gritty dust thrown up by the totally unarmored Humvee we were in. Kids threw rocks at us. “That means they like us,” one Soldier told me. “I think.…”

Then there was the victory lap with Marines in southern towns. The Shiite population there was overjoyed with the US victory and the overthrown Saddam. I was in a small camp in Diwaniyah when Udeh and Kuseh Hussein were killed. There was so much celebratory fire, a Marine standing post on a rooftop nearby was injured when a round came down out of the sky and hit him in the leg.

I remember standing on the street corner just outside what was still not yet called the Green Zone (the troops from the 2nd ACR called it the MOAC: mother of all checkpoints) at 9pm waiting for a driver from the AP to pick me and a couple colleagues up after a trip into the field. I didn’t think for one second that something would happen to me at the time.

Then it all changed from hope to despair.

I returned to a very different Iraq in late 2005. For a month I cowered in the back of a Marine Humvee in Ramadi dodging IEDs on nightly patrols and raids. My first night there in early December, a coordinated IED attack maimed several Marines and killed two after they’d dismounted from a 7 ton truck to fix a Humvee disabled by a previous bomb. I went along on the QRF and watched as Marines picked up combat boots filled with severed feet and legs.

In Hit, we were in the boondocks for a month. The desert “ratlines” that funneled suicide bombers into Iraq from Syria. It was tense but quiet, until a group of insurgents tried to overrun the camp I was in guarded by a single platoon of Marines. We joked together that the Iraq war had turned into the war on drugs — every time you grab an insurgent or uncover a (massive) weapons cache, there’s three more that pop up right alongside it (or him). We were never going to win this war, we thought.

And then it all changed. I remember thinking to myself even after the first trip to Iraq that the main problem was the Iraqis themselves. They refused to act. They refused to reject being cooped in someone else’s failing agenda (the islamists). They failed to stand up for themselves and confront the violence that no one wanted. Why weren’t we guilting them into acting?

Then we did. There was a tipping point there. Not sure when, but something showed the community leaders there that throwing their lot in with AQ wasn’t going to get them where they needed to go. The Iraqis didn’t strike me as particularly radical people — they weren’t ripe for the Taliban or the Iranian mullahs. But something clearly convinced local leaders to side with the US and stand up against AQ. Whether it was the severed head of a cousin to Abdul-Satter Abu Risha delivered to his doorstep that did it or what, I don’t know. But something tipped the balance.

Then it was hard fighting and close teaming and tough, thorough training that got the job done. The troops stuck to their guns. They refused to relent. They bit their tongues when they saw the Iraqi forces acting like idiots. They kept cajoling them into the fight. And they did it. As Steve Colbert said: “We won…”

I went back to the new Iraq in early 2008 and I was stunned. I was also bored. One month with combat units there — Marines and Army — and not a single raid. No incoming rockets. Not even a stray AK round from a Friday wedding party. Everything had changed.

And this is where we find ourselves today.

Am I nervous about how this is all going to shake out? Yes. But I’m confident that Iraq has passed the point of no return. I’m confident that they will not revert to the chaos and jihadist mayhem of 2006 and ’07. DO they have “reconciliation?” No. But do we? Do they have a hydrocarbon law yet? No. But can you even conceive of how complex such a law would be? Could you see the US coming up with one? The only states in the region that have them are theocracies or kingdoms. No one voted on those.

But at the end of the day it’s been a major triumph for our armed forces. Politicians in the US certainly didn’t help much. The troops stuck to the guns, put their heads down and worked hard to make it a success. They didn’t involve themselves in the debates — there is no debate, right? You execute your orders and you do them decisively. The military did way more than they were trained to do. And they did it without complaint and with amazing skill and aptitude.

I am glad to have witnessed and been a part — in a small way — of this very unpopular war. It’s when the chips are down; when nobody says you’ll win; when all support has faded away where character is found. Those who fought, worked and died there had it. And we should be exceptionally proud of those who will never quite brush all that talcum sand out of their boots ever again.

– Christian

Can we please now say that the “Cut and Run”-ers were dead wrong. That America could be successful in Iraq and that it wasn’t the Sunnis who did it; it was Americans who supported an unpopular “surge” strategy that proved to be the real solution to the security problem…

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON — The number of daily attacks in Iraq has dropped nearly 95 percent since last year, a U.S. military official said yesterday.

Iraq suffered an average of 180 attacks per day this time last year. But over the past week, the average number was 10, Army Brig. Gen. David G. Perkins, a Multi-National Force Iraq spokesman, said.

“This is a dramatic improvement of safety throughout the country,” Perkins told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference in Baghdad yesterday.

He added that the country’s murder rates have dropped below levels that existed before the start of American operations in Iraq. In November, the ratio was 0.9 per 100,000 people.

– Christian

…but you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media.

Military.com ran a story from our friends at Stars and Stripes which reported the Marines plan to hand over “Provincial Iraqi Control” of al Anbar province on Saturday (June 29).

Once the most violent place in Iraq, Anbar province will come under Provincial Iraqi Control on Saturday, a senior military official said Monday.

So far, nine Iraqi provinces are under Provincial Iraqi Control, or PIC, in which Iraqi security forces perform day-to-day operations and U.S. troops provide assistance as needed, the military official told reporters.

“When you PIC a province, the coalition force goes into what we call an operational overwatch: They’re there, essentially as a security blanket,” the official said.

Though the Washington Post ran a story on its Web site today which lead with the heinous attempt by AQI to disrupt the handover by bombing a provincial council meeting and killing an estimated 20 (which hits pretty close to home for me because I met some of these tribal leaders in the very place where the bombing occurred — see the picture above), the paper edition did not have a story on the handover, nor did the New York Times.

Remember, these were the papers that jumped on the leak of a Marine Corps Intelligence report in September 2006 that Anbar was lost. Wrote the NYTimes:

As the situation has deteriorated, insurgent attacks have increased. The report describes Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as an integral part of the social fabric of Anbar.

Aside from being flat out wrong on that assessment, the stories painted a grim picture of the situation in Anbar and help solidify impressions (with an election coming up just a month later) that Iraq was a lost cause.

But how times have changed. Anbar is flat out boring to go visit anymore. Believe me, I was there for two months in 2005–2006 and I know how violent it was.

And you know I went back in January and now Marines are itching to ditch their protective gear and whining louder and louder about coming home or heading to a real fight in Afghanistan. But why can’t the regular media bring themselves to report such a development. Anbar was the headquarters for al Qaeda in Iraq for years — now it’s secure enough to hand over to Iraqi control…before eight other provinces…That’s news.

Ok, off my soapbox now.

– Christian

Our boy Bill Roggio got his hands on some intel that filled in the blanks on that truck explosion in Sadr City this week.

“…the explosions were caused by the premature detonation of a Special Groups improvised rocket launching system. The system, which has been described as a flying improvised explosive device, or airborne IED, had received little attention until yesterdays explosions in Shaab.

“What I find disconcerting is there have been few corrections. This was not an engagement and these were not Special Groups transporting missiles and mortars in a bongo truck.”

The bongo truck was actually the “launch vehicle,” according to bomb experts who surveyed the scene. “This was a crude rocket launching system we call an IRAM [improvised rocket assisted mortars] that prematurely detonated causing the other rockets in the truck to catastrophically exploded,” Stover said. Two Mahdi Army Special Groups fighters were killed in the subsequent explosions, as well as 16 civilians. Twenty-nine civilians were wounded and 15 buildings were severely damaged.

There were five blast sites, the US military reported. The initial blast occurred at the rocket launcher, while the four other rockets were thrown several hundred meters to the east and detonated. “It is believed the intended targets were US Soldiers at [Forward Operating Base] Callahan and while in the final stages of preparing for the attack, for an unknown reason one rocket prematurely detonated causing the remaining rockets to launch and explode erratically.“

I dunno, what’s the difference between an improvised MLRS and an IED? Roggio tries to explain:

While the US military related the IRAM explosions in Sha’ab to the April 28 IRAM attacks on Joint Security Station Thawra I in Sadr City and Forward Operating Base Loyalty, there may be two improvised weapons systems at play. Both the JSS Thawra I and the FOB Loyalty attacks were conducted by pulling trucks right outside of the bases’ blast walls and firing the improvised rockets into bases. The attack on FOB Loyalty resulted in two soldiers killed and 16 wounded.

The US military said the weapons used in the April 28 attacks had a limited range of between 50 and 150 yards, according to a source familiar with the attack who wishes to remain anonymous. The US military said the range and size of the warhead on the IRAMs is classified.

Based on the images of the launchers used in the April 28 attacks [see slideshow], the IRAM looks to be a large canister, perhaps a propane or fuel tank, filled with explosives and propelled by 107mm rocket booster. These types of improvised weapons — essentially flying IEDs — would have a short range and would be highly inaccurate.

So, in a sense, what we’re looking at is a remote controlled, improvised multiple-mortar system. Kinda like an insurgent version of the Non-line of sight Launch System, or NLOS-LS…

What is clear is that the devices are using 107mm rocket charges. The US military said these charges are “of Iranian-manufacture.” The lot numbers and dates of manufacture show the rocket casings have been manufactured within the past three years.

The rocket casings shown in the images provided by Multinational Forces Iraq are the same type used in the Chinese-made Type 63 towed 107mm Multiple Launch Rocket. The Iranians manufacture this weapons system and the rockets, according to a former US military intelligence analyst familiar with Iranian munitions and weapons systems.

The type of improvised launch system and rocket is not new to warfare. The Irish Republican Army used a similar system to conduct a February 1991 attack on 10 Downing Street, the London office and home of the British prime minister.

(Gouge: BR)

– Christian

Here’s an early look at Military.com’s lede story tomorrow morning (barring breaking news, of course). Christian continues his reporting from Iraq, this time focusing on the enemy sniper threat in Tikrit:

They call it the sniper dance.

Youre out in the open. There are houses all around you — cover and concealment for enemy sharpshooters to plink off a U.S. Soldier.

Stand there, wait a few seconds, shift to the right — then do it all over again.

We dont want a sniper to get a good shot off on us, one Soldier says. So we keep moving all the time.

In this home region for the deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the security that has only recently descended here is tenuous at best. With the Iraqi army largely pushed out of the surrounding towns and villages to help U.S. forces root out the most tenacious holdouts in other areas, the focus here is on building a durable police force that can secure the population and at the same time keep the insurgency from sparking up again.

American Military Police units and the civilian advisors that help them recognize the mandate is a tall order. With corruption a part of everyday life here and a policing philosophy making the transition from being an instrument of oppression to a force that serves the community, putting the local police on the right track takes constant interaction and a deep reservoir of patience.

Our motto is no free chicken, said Staff Sgt. Joe Cline, a platoon sergeant with the 56th Military Police Company, who added their main mission is to cut the Iraqi polices dependence on the U.S. military.

Each of the platoons with the 56th Military Police Company — which is made of Army reservists from a Arizona, California and Nevada — is divided into smaller Police Transition Teams, called PiTTs. Paired with civilian contractors drawn from police departments from across the country, the PiTT teams patrol the towns outside the sprawling Camp Speicher base just to the north of Tikrit, visiting police stations, meeting with their leaders and assessing what needs they have to keep cops on the beat.

At the Tikrit patrol station, MPs wanted to see if a shooting incident that occurred the previous day showed up on the stations log books. After a furious series of mistranslations and fumbling through piles of papers, the Iraqi policeman said he didnt have the shooting — which occurred just a block away — on his books.

That was reported at another station, the Iraqi policeman told the MPs.

Frustrated, the MPs looked at each other with dismay.

Read the rest in the headlines at Military.com, first thing Monday morning.

And I’m headed for Kansas University tomorrow to be part of a milblogging panel with Jack Holt from DoD’s New Media Directorate and Castle of Argghhh’s John Donovan. I’ll be posting when I can from the road. If any DT readers are in or around Jayhawk Country please stop by the campus and say hello after the panel on Tuesday night.

(Photo by Christian Lowe)

– Ward

I was warned that this place was bad news. That it had been made into a temple for the deceased dictator and that we really shouldnt hang out there for long.

I told them I wanted to go anyway.

(Sorry about the picture quality but I had to shoot it from a speeding Humvee window.)

You can see for yourself, the tomb of Saddam Hussein and the shrine (if you can call it that) thats devoted to him aint much. I mean, check out the trash pile in the dirt to the right. And I expected Lenins tomb-esque lines of devoted followers lining the sidewalk to pay tribute to the dear leader. But no one was there.
Not even a guard to keep vengeful victims of his rule at bay.

The town of Owja, where Saddam was born and raised, is still a nettlesome mix of disgruntled Sunnis, Baathists and Hussein kin. Its a dangerous place, these Soldiers told me. But judging from the lack of devotion to his final resting place, hes not the local celebrity he once was.

(That’s a picture of the wall leading up to Saddam’s tomb…If anyone can read Arabic I’d like to know what it says. Or maybe a new caption contest?)

– Christian

(Cross-posted at my “From the Front” blog.)

Sure, the unit was an hour late to pick me up. But you gotta be ready for that when traveling in a war zone. They don’t work on your schedule over here.

I made it down to the command post for 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines — a Hawaii-based unit that’s been here since August. The plan was to head out with them in a town called Karmah for a couple days to see how security has improved since some tough fighting this past summer.

I met a few of the guys, loaded my gear (way too much of it, of course) into the “high-back” Humvee (the pickup truck version with a big box of thick steel armoring its cargo compartment) and we headed toward the back gate of Camp Fallujah. During the first part of the ride, we made small talk, getting to know where each other was from and how things had been since they got here.

Then I asked them how their Humvees had been holding up.

“Pretty good,” one of the Marines replied.

The Humvee is a real workhorse here. But for the last few years new units coming in have been falling in on the same jeeps left here by other battalions heading out. That means these Humvees have taken quite a beating. And it’s a real tribute to the maintenance Marines — and Soldiers, for that matter — who keep them running.

No sooner had we left the back gate on our way to Combat Outpost Delta, where 3/3’s Lima Company is based, than the vehicle commander radioed his team leader: “Gunny, you know your Humvee is smoking?”

Though we tried for another 100 or so yards, pushing on for the rest of the five-mile trip was not an option. We had to tow it back to Camp Fallujah for repair or a switch of Humvee.

I was wishing I hadn’t asked anything about the jeeps…

A blown radiator, a screwy Chameleon anti-IED system and a Blue Force Tracker on the fritz, kept us at Fallujah for eight more hours. Each time we thought we were free to go, a new problem cropped up. Murphy was on the attack.

The maintenance guys told me many of the earlier problems with the Humvee had been fixed. With new suspensions, more powerful engines and a rebuilt power steering system, major problems are kept at bay. Problem is, it’s the minor ones that’ll keep you from getting to your destination most of the time.

They told me Marines at the forward bases sometimes put oil in the power steering system, or brake fluid in the radiator. “One time I had to drain the gas tank and I found anti-freeze,” one of them said.

There’s no evidence this kind of routine Jiffy Lube snafu was the cause of our problems. But one thing’s for sure. These Humvees do Herculean work. But if you put the wrong fluids on the wrong place, Murphy could be lurking behind you just around the corner.

– Christian

(Cross-posted at Christian’s “From the Front” blog.)

As many of you already know, Stratfor has been an important resource for deep analysis of many geostrategic problems facing the United States. While their analysis is typically dry and dispassionate, they tend to examine all angles without favor and do a pretty good job of distilling the issue for general consumption.

They have not been Iraq war cheerleaders, nor have they been obsessively morose in their characterization of the challenges there. So I thought it might be a thought-provoking exercise to include an excerpt here of their most recent analysis of the options in Iraq, which is posted in full on Military.coms Warfighters Forum page.

While I understand none of you want this page to turn into an Iraq War site, we will be including a few more Iraq items than usual as the Sept. 15 interim report deadline approaches.

…Following the Republican defeat in Congress in November, U.S. President George W. Bush surprised Iran by increasing U.S. forces in Iraq rather than beginning withdrawals. This created a window of a few months during which Tehran, weighing the risks and rewards, was sufficiently uncertain that it might have opted for an agreement thrusting the Shiites behind a coalition government. That moment has passed. As the NIE points out, the probability of forming any viable government in Baghdad is extremely low. Iran no longer is facing its worst-case scenario. It has no motivation to bail the United States out.

What, then, is the United States to do? In general, three options are available. The first is to maintain the current strategy. This is the administration’s point of view. The second is to start a phased withdrawal, beginning sometime in the next few months and concluding when circumstances allow. This is the consensus among most centrist Democrats and a growing number of Republicans. The third is a rapid withdrawal of forces, a position held by a fairly small group mostly but not exclusively on the left. All three conventional options, however, suffer from fatal defects.

Bush’s plan to stay the course would appear to make relatively little sense. Having pursued a strategic goal with relatively fixed means for more than four years, it is unclear what would be achieved in years five or six. As the old saw goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different outcome. Unless Bush seriously disagrees with the NIE, it is difficult to make a case for continuing the current course.

Looking at it differently, however, there are these arguments to be made for maintaining the current strategy: Whatever mistakes might have been made in the past, the current reality is that any withdrawal from Iraq would create a vacuum, which would rapidly be filled by Iran. Alternatively, Iraq could become a jihadist haven, focusing attention not only on Iraq but also on targets outside Iraq. After all, a jihadist safe-haven with abundant resources in the heart of the Arab world outweighs the strategic locale of Afghanistan. Therefore, continuing the U.S. presence in Iraq, at the cost of 1,000–2,000 American lives a year, prevents both outcomes, even if Washington no longer has any hope of achieving the original goal…

Read the entire Endgame article in this weeks Warfighters Forum.

– Christian

We at DefenseTech recognize that the conflict in Iraq is, to say the least, a controversial subject for our readers and we’re not endorsing the following view other than to say that it comes from a very reliable source and is at least a small window into the current situation from someone other than a Pentagon appointed spokesman.

No matter how skeptical you are on Americas struggle in Iraq, its at least worth a read to see an under-reported aspect of the ongoing surge and its effect on the insurgency (no matter whos doing the shooting)…

I must apologize for the tardiness of my update. As you may know I have been kept pretty busy since my return from R&R. I was one of the early birds so now most of the team is on R&R along with some who are away on TDY; so the few of us back here have to cover down on multiple areas.

Over the past month we have seen and experienced a lot. As military professionals we are seeing the benefits of the President’s surge, our tactical and operational progress over the month has been really impressive. Between U.S. ground forces and the Iraqi Security Forces (Army and National Police) we have been uncovering hundreds of insurgent (Al Qaeda and Jaish al Mahdi — aka JAM) caches and detecting far more IEDs before they explode. Caches so far this year are over 3,800. I think that is triple last year’s.

Al Qaeda has totally lost the support of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. The fanatics over-played their hand when they started murdering popular sheiks, kidnapping tribal women for forced marriages, and even tried outlawing smoking. The locals in Al Anbar Province are taking their communities back and going after the terrorists themselves. Attacks on Coalition Forces out in what once used to be the Wild Wild West are down dramatically; we used to see 50 to 60 attacks a day but now they’re down to less than one a day. To the point that the Marine commander out west has asked for permission to lighten his soldiers’ and Marines’ load by having them only wear the flack jacket/vest without the side plates and upper arm Kevlar.

Up in Diyala the provincial capital is completely different than it was over a month ago. The soldiers of the two Brigade Combat Teams (1st CAV and 2nd ID) have secured the city. The insurgents are now wandering around the countryside — easier to pick up with infrared/heat sensors on our UAVs and air weapons teams (attack helos). They try to plant IEDs at night thinking they are safe and sound, then out of nowhere they are taken out by a Hellfire missile and it’s all caught on tape too. It’s our own reality TV show call “IED Planters;” its a great show when one has night duty; dial in the UAV lead, cook some popcorn, grab a soda, sit back, relax and watch the fun — all live!

The insurgents are still out there, but they are finding it harder and harder to find support. We are no longer playing “whack-a-mole.” Since we have a larger number of troops over here we are now able to clear out the insurgents and then hold on to our gains; then turn it over to the Iraqi Security Forces, Army, National Police and local Police.

That is what we did in Baqubah (an Al Qaeda and JAM infested town). Once it was cleared we put a tank, Bradley or Striker on just about every corner and told the people to stay inside after dark. If they were out and about at night — where they shouldn’t be — they were ‘lit up.’ The people appreciated it because the insurgent rats’ nest was cleared out.

As if that is not enough to demonstrate that we are making serious inroads and a turn for the better, winning the counterinsurgency (COIN) war, we are taking out the insurgents’ leaders faster than they can replace them. All over Iraq our Special Forces and Iraqi Special Operation Forces are taking out insurgent cell leaders in surgical strikes and raids (most effective), as are the conventional American and Iraqi units — killing or capturing ringleaders. How are we doing it? We’re doing it the old fashion way, through human intelligence (HUMINT). The Iraqi people are turning them in to us and not allowing them any sanctuary — they are denying them the ability to “swim through the sea of the people.” (Mao’s old Communist saying). And because our soldiers are out there interacting with the local populace. The people are not afraid to come up to our troops and tell them what is going on in their neighborhood. It’s still bad out there, but it is definitely improving.

The first few weeks of July we saw a heavy increase in rocket and mortar attacks. They were up to their same old tricks of firing off a few rounds then scooting — running off. They also fire from built up housing areas, next to schools and mosques too, because they know that we will not shoot counter battery fire against them for the sake of injuring innocent civilians and causing undue collateral damage. All the while they could care less.

They have been lucky at times and we have suffered some casualties.
Fortunately the Iraqi people are getting tired of them and turning on them. We had an Iraqi man show up at one of our local neighborhood security outposts saying that he knew where some ‘terrorists’ were planning to launch some rockets at the ‘CF and IZ’ (Coalition Forces and the International Zone). He volunteered to show our troops where they were located. He took a platoon of infantry over to a school yard where six Katyusha rockets were rigged and ready for firing. By the way, the insurgents were still there guarding the site resulting in a pretty good snatch. We tried to give the man reward money for turning the insurgents in, but he refused to take anything. He told our troops “it is my responsibility, you come here to free us and protect us; it is the least thing I can do.” Incidentally, most of the rockets and mortar rounds that are being shot at us, or that we are capturing, are made in the good ole Peoples Republic of China. Dji vu, remind you of another foreign insurgent war in Southeast Asia a few years back? This begs the Question — Are the Chinese really our friends? They claim they don’t sell arms and equipment to any country that passes them on.
Unfortunately we know they are coming in from Iran and Iran is also training insurgents in their country to use the rockets and mortars. One more reason Joe Lieberman is right on Iran. By the way, old ‘Mookie’ (Muqtada al-Sadr) has fled back to Iran with his tail between his legs (again) trailed by his senior cronies. Things are just getting too hot for them over here.

The Iraqi forces are increasingly carrying the fight to the insurgent militias. A National Police unit down in An Nasiriyah came under attack by Jaish al Mahdi (JAM) Army elements who are accustomed to moving about freely and intimidating the police. However, the NP unit there supported by a small U.S. advisory team fought off the insurgents. Instead of a cakewalk, the goons hit a wall and were in turn hammered with some heavy air strikes — Specter (C130 Gunship) laid them to waste. The Iraqi police counter-attacked along with a couple of Iraqi Army battalions and cleared the town of insurgents.

Up north in Mosul, Iraqi Army and National Police units have been sticking it to the enemy through a series of tough combat engagements, and netting som e massive arms caches seized from the insurgents. In Kirkuk a gruesome car bomb went off in town and the Iraqi police reacted quickly and stopped several other car bombs on the outskirts of town from reaching their intended targets.

These recent successes are beginning to show gains on the military aspect of this war. Unfortunately all the military successes are offset by the inaction of the Iraqi Parliament. This is what the press and members of congress who want us out (now) focus on. Creating a stable, functioning and democratic government takes time. Less we forget, it took us eleven years before we had agreed upon and signed the Constitution of the United States. And we had a head start on freedom.

July was a great month for the Iraqi National Soccer team. They played a spectacular game against South Korea in the Semi-finals and defeated them in a penalty kick shoot out. That evening many Iraqis went out and celebrated. Many of the restaurants and shops were open in the market areas. Unfortunately, Al Qaeda terrorists set off two big car bombs near an area where the people were celebrating their team’s victory. Everyone knew that it had to be a non-Iraqi insurgent. No Iraqi would conduct such a heinous act in a time of National pride. Fortunately the players were determined to give there best in the final game against none other than Saudi Arabia — where some of the foreign fighters come from. I watched the final Asian Cup game with the Iraqi officers in their Operations Center and with the interpreters. The Iraqis played their hearts out and dominated the second half, running circles around the Saudis. It was not only clear that they were the better team; they wanted it more than the Saudis. I think winning the Asian Cup gave all Iraqis hope that one day they will all be united and live in peace.

Earlier in the month we lost two more IGFC soldiers to assassinations. One was an intelligence officer, Staff Colonel Jawad, who was one of the original group of officers when the IGFC was established back in 2005. He was killed on his way to work. COL Jawad was very well liked by both the officers and the enlisted. Our nickname for him was Mr. Happy. He spoke pretty good English and always greeted you with a genuine friendly smile and was always in a good mood. The other soldier was a medic with the support battalion, whom I did not know. The reality of their passing was a reminder of the brutality of insurgent warfare and that we all are targets of the insurgents.

(Gouge: NC)

– Christian