skippy the bush kangaroo: the surge is working!

Sunday, September 09, 2007

the surge is working!

•baghdad has become more segregated. sunni muslims in the capital now live in ghettos encircled by concrete blast walls to stop militia attacks and car bombs.

•shiite militias continue to push to control the city’s last mixed sunni-shiite neighborhoods in the southwest by murdering and intimidating sunni residents and, sometimes, their shiite neighbors.

•services have not improved across most of the capital. the international aid group oxfam reported in july that only 30 percent of iraqis have access to clean water, compared with 50 percent in 2003.

•each month tens of thousands of iraqis flee their homes in search of safety.

• iraqi security forces remain heavily infiltrated by militias, and politicians continue to intervene in their activities.

•civilian deaths have not decreased in any significant way across iraq, according to statistics from the iraqi interior ministry, and numbers gathered by mcclatchy newspapers show no consistent downward trend even in baghdad, despite military assertions to the contrary. the military has provided no hard numbers to back the claim.

the only sign of progress is in the homogenous sunni arab province of anbar, where tribes have turned on al-qaida in iraq and established relative security in a once violent area.

but that success has little to do with the 4,000 u.s. troops who were sent to anbar as part of the surge of 30,000 additional troops to iraq. instead, the change began more than four months earlier, with the formation in september of the anbar salvation council to fight the escalating terror of sunni extremists.

and today sees even more success: a car bomb kills 15 in baghdad, and another hidden bomb kills 4 in the iraqi shiite holy town of kufa.

but we're sure gen. petraeus will have some good news this week:

but though the public assessment of progress in iraq remains largely negative, most expected petraeus, the top u.s. commander in iraq, to express a rosier view when he begins his congressional testimony tomorrow. only about four in 10 said they expect the general to give an accurate accounting of the situation in iraq. a majority, 53 percent, said they think his report will try to make the situation in iraq look better than it really is.

always look on the bright side of life!

Labels: iraq