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At Last! Signs of Progress in Iraq

Posted by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist in At TMV.
Jan 18th, 2008 | Comments

As it has turned out, George Bush’s Forever War has been more about oil than WMD, spreading democracy or punishing those bad Iraqis who flew hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

This was further confirmed when Bush and Prime Minister Al-Maliki announced that they had cut a sweetheart deal under which the abjectly corrupt Baghdad government gets a long-term nanny in the form of U.S. troops stationed at permanent bases and the gluttonous U.S. gets first dibs at Iraq’s vast oil riches.

But like so many other things in Iraq – heck, like everything in Iraq – all is not going according to plan.

There still isn’t an oil law (although the Kurds are cutting deals on the side with non-U.S. companies), the Kurds are fighting with the rest of Iraq over oil production in Kirkuk, which accounted for most of the increase in oil production last year, and the oil-rich Basra region remains hugely unstable.

And now comes news that Iraqi oil production may actually be going down. But worry not, Mr. and Mrs. America, opium production is going up.

More here and here.

casualobserver

Why TMV is effectively the Fox News of the Left since the departure of MvdG and Jason............

"– heck, like everything in Iraq – all is not going according to plan."

Today, USA Today is reporting that 75% of Baghdad is "under control" per MNFI. Other than the obvious, what does that mean in terms of progress?
The military classifies 356 of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods in the "control" or "retain" category of its four-tier security rating system, meaning enemy activity in those areas has been mostly eliminated and normal economic activity is resuming.
An the elimination of the threat and the return of normal economic activity signals dramatic improvement and a shift in priorities for normal Iraqis. As MG Rick Lynch said last week, Iraqis aren't taking about security anymore, they're talking about jobs. That's a very important development.

So how much progress has been made in Baghdad? Well consider that almost a year ago, when Phase I of the surge began (Phase I being the actual surging of the troops, not the kinetic portion of Phase II), only 37 Baghdad neighborhoods were in the "control" and "retain" categories.

But, it is always easy to make your point when you simply ignore the facts that don't jibe with the headline you want.

shaun

CO:

You delude yourself. Nothing has gone according to plan since the White House said the troops would be home by Christmas 2003. Get over it.

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