Now, in the fourth year of this war, it is time for the Iraqis to stand and defend their own nation.
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The Iraqis must understand that they alone can lead their nation to freedom. They alone must meet the challenges that lie ahead. And they must know that, every time they call 911, we are not going to send 20,000 more American soldiers.
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When the Iraqis understand that America is not giving an open- ended commitment of support, when they understand that our troops indeed are coming home, then they will understand the day has come to face their own responsibility to protect and defend their nation.
Either this "Dick" does not read the news, or is practicing the "close my eyes and the truth will disappear thing I referred to here, or he is deliberately trying to mislead the American people.
An example of the type of news that the MSM doesn't show you, things that the "Dick" Durbin has full access to, as we all do, we see that the Iraqi's are indeed doing everything in their power to stand and protect and defend itself.
AR RAMADI, Iraq, — Gunshots echoed in the distance as hundreds of hopeful Iraqi police recruits waited in line to join the fight against the insurgents still present within the city of Ramadi.
After three days of screening, roughly 400 Iraqi citizens out of the more than 600 applicants got their wish to become Iraqi police officers. On Jan. 8, the police recruits were transported to Jordan for the beginning of a five-week training course.
One year ago a murderous intimidation campaign prevented local Iraqis from enlisting in Ramadi. Recruiting numbers for police were insignificant.
More than 1,000 enlisted in the police force last month. Over 800 are expected to enlist in Anbar Province this month.
“The local tribes stood up to the intimidation campaign and are taking back their city from the terrorists,” said the Coalition spokesman in Ramadi Marine Maj. Riccoh Player.
This is happening all over Iraq. Despite what the Dick had to say and what MSM reports, here is a map showing how much of Iraq the Iraqi Army is in the lead in security.
Not exactly what we have been told huh? Big surprise there.
The Iraqi's are being trained and are taking the lead in securing their country.... also contrary to what we are being told, many of them are very grateful that we, America, are helping them.
A good example of that comes in todays news... not on CNN, Fox, Wapo or NYT of course, but the press releases are out there for those that care about the "truth" and not some party line.
Admittedly it took Iraqi's a good bit of time before they could trust America and our intentions, and trust that President Bush would not give in to the Democrats wish to cut and run, redeploy, get out...however they are phrasing it today, but the Tribal leaders are warming up and actively stepping in to take their streets back from insurgents, terrorists and especially al-Qaeda.
Tribal leader warms to U.S. troops
Sunday, 14 January 2007
HAMDIYAH — His left arm in a sling as a result of being shot by insurgents a couple of weeks ago, Sheik Jabbar Al Fahad, dressed in a gray pinstripe suit and accompanied by the commander of U.S. forces in Ramadi, walks down a dirt road in his neighborhood.
U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police escort him, their Bradley fighting vehicles and armored Humvees left behind. Their steps rouse an occasional baritone “moo” from one of many cows grazing nearby, but for Anbar province, the pace feels almost like strolling.
Local men come out from their homes and businesses to enthusiastically greet the sheik with kisses and hugs, and to shake the hands of the soldiers.
At one point, Lt. Col. John Tien stops and calls over a stone wall into the backyard of a house, waving a father and his young children to him. As the man lifts his kids one by one, Tien hands each a stuffed animal.
“A month ago we couldn’t even come in this neighborhood,” Tien, commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment out of Friedberg, Germany, said after giving out the toys.
“Then the local men said they were ready to take responsibility. Now we can walk this entire road.”
Hamdiyah is one of eight tribal neighborhoods in Jazeera, a sweeping area just north of Ramadi city that soldiers refer to in part as the heart of darkness — one of the outposts there is named OP Forsaken. Before al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed, Jazeera was his playground, a place where he moved freely and preached violence.
Running along the northern side of the Euphrates, Jazeera stretches beyond Ramadi’s western border, and to the east abuts the outskirts of Habbaniyah, which has been transferred from coalition forces to the Iraqi army.
Until recently, Hamdiyah was “in the enemy’s hands, and they were clearly intimidating the population,” Tien said.
But in early November, the tribes’ leader, Sheik Jabbar Al Fahad, reached out to Tien’s Task Force 2-37. He said he had a list of volunteers and was ready to stand up a police station and needed support, according to Maj. Michael Wawrzyniak, operations officer for the task force.
Within a week there was a large-scale clearing operation, and shortly thereafter Iraqi police were patrolling the area.
That has been the pattern in the heart of darkness over the last four to five months. Much like how dominoes fall, tribes from west to east have turned in rapid succession from hostile to friendly and joined coalition forces in the fight against the insurgency.
Much of the fighting has shifted to the insurgents’ home bases where they once thought they were safe, said Col. Sean MacFarland, the top commander in Ramadi and in charge of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division.
Though much of the surrounding province remains insecure and an insurgent stronghold, things started changing in Jazeera in late August when the insurgents killed a revered and influential sheik. His followers couldn’t find the body for four days.
“That’s really where the insurgents went wrong,” Wawrzyniak said.
Murder intimidation was a regular part of the insurgents’ repertoire, but “al-Qaida overplayed their hand,” MacFarland added.
The sheiks, who according to Tien “had been to some extent neutered by insurgents,” banded together, forming a group called the Anbar Awakening. They decided they had had enough and essentially started to switch sides.
The locals followed their lead.
“The people are tired of al-Qaida. They want another way out,” Iraqi border police Col. Yousef Tariq, who introduced Sheik Jabbar to the task force, said through an interpreter.
“This is what al-Qaida has done for the community: They’ve created widows, stopped colleges and education, stopped the normal machine of life. [The police] are trying to start that engine again.”
Tribal borders are as defined in Anbar as state boundaries are in the United States, so when one sheik would come forward to work with coalition forces, any security developed would literally stop at the line of the next tribe.
But success begets success, Tien said. Once sheiks saw security improving to their west, they extended their hands. When Wawrzyniak went to meet with Sheik Jabbar, he was introduced to Sheik Mohammed, Jabbar’s neighbor to the east in Albu Obaid.
“Sheik Mohammed was staring from the other side, standing on the outside looking in and saying ‘I want some of that too,’” Tien said of the security that was rapidly growing in Hamdiyah.
The first Iraqi police station opened in Albu Obaid on Jan. 6 in an abandoned house across from a U.S. patrol base. Until that day, there had been zero Iraqi police presence in the area.
As Tien toured the outside of the station the day it opened, he excitedly whipped out his digital camera to take a photo of two Iraqi police trucks pulling up with their telltale blue doors on an otherwise white pickup.
“This is a first,” he said, grinning.
Police officers from Hamdiyah, barely experienced themselves, came to help out the newest startup station, handing out weapons. They fastidiously recorded the serial number of each AK-47 before turning it over to its new owner, who was also given a blue button-down shirt as a uniform.
Tien met with some of the new officers, giving them what amounted to a pep talk.
“This is the last day terrorists ever come to Albu Obaid, right?” he said to about seven officers lined up across from him. They nodded in stoic agreement.
The officers will be backed by coalition forces as at the other stations in Jazeera, but Tien, like many commanders, stresses the importance of Iraqis providing security for Iraqis.
“There’s a saying that all politics is local. Well, I have a saying here that all security is local,” he said.
Back in Hamdiyah, as the visit between Sheik Jabbar and MacFarland winded down and the soldiers headed back to their Bradleys and Humvees, a siren wailed.
To an American ear it’s a signal that something is going down, but in Iraq — in Anbar, in Jazeera — it’s a comforting symbol.
“That’s a good sound, police sirens,” said MacFarland, turning to the sheik. “It means law and order is returning.”
This is the type of thing that is happening all over Iraq...it is good news, but not "covered" news.
Go to Operation Iraqi Freedom, top right hand corner, new link called Terror orgs in Iraq, click the al-Qaeda in Iraq link and take a good look at our efforts and battles against al-Qaeda in Iraq... this is one of the main groups that we would be abandoning the Iraqi's to, should we leave before they can stand fully on their own.
If you count on the MSM to "inform" you of more than the death tolls and their "milestones" in Iraq, you deserve the lies you are being fed. The information, bad AND good is out there. Operation Iraqi Freedom and Centcom has these releases every single day, and they also have links to the casualties in Iraq, they do not JUST tell the good news, they tell it all.
No one claims that all is rosy in Iraq, but the amazing steps and successes they are achieving is completely ignored here in America. Our soldiers progress in Iraq is nothing short of miraculous and yet they get no credit for them because no one wishes to tell you about them.
That is a disservice to our troops and the MSM should be ashamed of keeping the good they do a secret and not giving them the credit that they have earned with their blood, sweat, tears and very lives.
So back to the "Dick, Durbin.... try telling the truth and forget about politics for a second.
The stunning aspect of all of this is the criticism of the President when he refused to call for a surge, Pelosi and company cried out that he wasn't listening, that there were not enough troops, yadda yadda yadda....UNTIL the President changed tactics and called for an increase in troops...then all those Democrats that were for the surge...magically changed their minds. Playing politics instead of doing everything to win this war on terror is something that HAS to stop.
Pelosi in 2004 about troop increase. It took Russert repeating the question FOUR times before Pelosi would stop trying to beat around the bush (no pun inteded) and answer the freaking question, but eventually she did answer.(Source)
MR. RUSSERT: What would you do in Iraq today right now?
REP. PELOSI: What I would do and what I think our country must do in Iraq is take an assessment of where we are. And there has to be a leveling with the American people and with the Congress of the United States as to what is really actually happening there. It's very hard to say what you would do. We need more troops on the ground. General...
MR. RUSSERT: American troops if necessary?
REP. PELOSI: ...Shinseki said this from the start, when you make an appraisal about whether you're going to war, you have to know what you need.
MR. RUSSERT: So you would put more American troops on the ground?
REP. PELOSI: What I'm saying to you, that we need more troops on the ground. I think it would be better if we could get them to be not American, that we could appeal to our European allies, NATO. I agree with Senator Kerry in that respect to come...
MR. RUSSERT: But if they say no, would you put more American troops on the ground?
REP. PELOSI: Clear and present danger facing the United States is terrorism. We have to solidify, we have to stabilize the situation in Iraq. As secretary of state has said, "You break it, you own it." We have a responsibility now in Iraq there. And we have to get more troops on the ground. But when General Shinseki said we need 300,000 troops, Secretary Wolfowitz said "wildly off the mark," because they knew a commitment of 300,000 troops would not be acceptable to the American people. So they went in with false assumptions about rose petals, not rocket-propelled grenades, and we're in this fix that we're in now.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, let's assume all that is wrong. In order to stabilize the situation, NATO has said they have no troops for Iraq, the French, the Germans and Russians saying no.
REP. PELOSI: We have to send...
MR. RUSSERT: Would you send more American troops in order to stabilize the situation?
REP. PELOSI: Yes. And let me just say this, we have--we must, though, internationalize the situation. We cannot take no for an answer. We have to use our diplomacy to the fullest extent to get more international troops on the ground. And we have to truly Iraqitize, internationalize and Iraqitize the situation. Before we can proceed, we have to know what we're dealing with. There's quicksand over there. It's Chalabi one day on the payroll, the next day we're raiding his house. It's Brahimi one day making the selection of who the new prime minister will be. The next day it's the Iraqi Governing Council putting forth a name and he finds out about it after the fact. What is going on? What is going on? There's serious questions here that jeopardize the safety of our troops and their ability to accomplish their mission and come home safely and soon.
Four times before she would answer honestly, but she did answer. Now that the President agrees, of course, Pelosi and company have changed their minds.
Kerry's constant flip flopping must be contagious, because now Grandma Nancy and Hillary have caught it from him as well as quite a few others.
Hypocrisy and dishonesty.
Once again I will end this with John Mccain's latest quote... I do not know about Mccain for president in 2008, but THIS quote, should go down in history.
"I'd much rather lose a campaign than lose a war,"....... John McCain
Too bad other politicians do not feel the same way.
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