U.S. hands back a quieter Anbar Province - International Herald Tribune U.S. hands back a quieter Anbar Province - International Herald Tribune

U.S. hands back a quieter Anbar Province - International Herald Tribune:

RAMADI, Iraq: Two years ago, Anbar Province was the most lethal place for American forces in Iraq. A U.S. marine or soldier died in the province nearly every day, and the provincial capital, Ramadi, was a moonscape of rubble and ruins. Islamic extremists controlled large pieces of territory, with some so ferocious in their views that they did not even allow the baking of bread.

On Monday, U.S. commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police. The ceremony, including a parade on a freshly paved street, capped one of the most significant turnabouts in the country since the war began five and a half years ago.

This was the province that two years ago was considered lost, but thanks to the Surge and the Sunni Awakening, it has been pacified.

Status in Iraq Status in Iraq

Current status in Iraq, thanks to MNF-Iraq:

Resistance "is a normal thing, and a right for everyone" Resistance "is a normal thing, and a right for everyone"

Yesterday, I suggested that if you really wanted to know what was going on in Iraq, the best way was to read Michaels Yon and Totten. I had forgotten Bill Ardolino. His Resistance "is a normal thing, and a right for everyone" is a great man-on-the-street view of Fallujah.

Perhaps more than any other element, contextual local perspective is missing from analysis about Iraq as a whole and Fallujah in particular. Western media, media consumers, and the political class offer strategic assessments about the conflict that confine the opinion and motivations of Iraqis to the general abstraction of religious sects and cherrypicked polls. It is a glaring oversight.

Lieberman and McCain on Iraq Lieberman and McCain on Iraq

WSJ: Listening to Petraeus: The president had the courage to change course on Iraq. Does Congress? by Sens. McCain and Lieberman makes a number of points about the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus before Congress. Of particular interest:

The Bush administration clung for too long to a flawed strategy in this war, despite growing evidence of its failure. Now advocates of withdrawal risk making the exact same mistake, by refusing to re-examine their own conviction that Gen. Petraeus's strategy cannot succeed and that the war is "lost," despite rising evidence to the contrary.

The Bush administration finally had the courage to change course in Iraq earlier this year. After hearing from Gen. Petraeus today, we hope congressional opponents of the war will do the same.

A Quick Guide to Key Petraeus Points A Quick Guide to Key Petraeus Points

NRO: A Quick Guide to Key Petraeus Points (Excerpts)

As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met. In recent months, in the face of tough enemies and the brutal summer heat of Iraq, Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces have achieved progress in the security arena. Though the improvements have been uneven across Iraq, the overall number of security incidents in Iraq has declined in 8 of the past 12 weeks, with the numbers of incidents in the last two weeks at the lowest levels seen since June 2006.

Coalition and Iraqi operations have helped reduce ethno-sectarian violence, as well, bringing down the number of ethno-sectarian deaths substantially in Baghdad and across Iraq since the height of the sectarian violence last December. The number of overall civilian deaths has also declined during this period, although the numbers in each area are still at troubling levels.

Additionally, in what may be the most significant development of the past 8 months, the tribal rejection of Al Qaeda that started in Anbar Province and helped produce such significant change there has now spread to a number of other locations as well.

And despite the constant refrain about Iraqi deaths:

Two US intelligence agencies recently reviewed our methodology, and they concluded that the data we produce is the most accurate and authoritative in Iraq.

As I mentioned up front, and as the chart before you reflects, the level of security incidents has decreased significantly since the start of the surge of offensive operations in mid-June, declining in 8 of the past 12 weeks, with the level of incidents in the past two weeks the lowest since June 2006 and with the number of attacks this past week the lowest since April 2006.

Civilian deaths of all categories, less natural causes, have also declined considerably, by over 45% Iraq-wide since the height of the sectarian violence in December. This is shown by the top line on this chart, and the decline by some 70% in Baghdad is shown by the bottom line. Periodic mass casualty attacks by Al Qaeda have tragically added to the numbers outside Baghdad, in particular. Even without the sensational attacks, however, the level of civilian deaths is clearly still too high and continues to be of serious concern.

Interesting reading. It puts the lie to much of the misinformation being spouted right now by the anti-War crowd, and points to the inanity of Sen. Schemer's comments this last weekend. The whole article is an interesting read.

Totten: Anbar Awakens Part I: The Battle of Ramadi Totten: Anbar Awakens Part I: The Battle of Ramadi

Michael J. Totten: Anbar Awakens Part I: The Battle of Ramadi tells the reality of the Anbar Awakening. Ramadi a year ago was extrodinarily dangerous for everyone, and in particular, the American military. Today, as with much of Anbar, Ramadi is more quit than many parts of Baghdad, and the Sunni Arab tribes there are working closely with Coallition and Iraqi security personel to keep it so. But that hasn't come without cost - as the city looks as bad as some of the German cities at the end of WWII. Life is improving though, with the restoration of some electricity and water, as compared to a total absence when the city was run by al Qaeda.

I will submit that for those of us who haven't been there, the best sources for what is really going on in Iraq come from the embeds like Michael Totten and Michael Yon. Far better than the perky Katie Couric spending a week in the country.

Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt (SWJ Blog) Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt (SWJ Blog)

An excellent review of what is happening right now in Iraq: Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt (SWJ Blog). It looks at why the situation throughout much of, in particular, Sunni Arab Iraq has swapped so markedly over the last six months, with most of the tribes switching from helping al Qaeda to essentially declaring blood feud against them, and joining us against them.

One big point is that the insurgency ratio can be changed much more rapidly and markedly by swapping insurgents to our side than by surging troops.

But there are a lot risks remaining, as the article points out.

Hillary: Sending Katie Couric to Iraq ‘Too Little, Too Late’ Hillary: Sending Katie Couric to Iraq ‘Too Little, Too Late’

ScrappleFace: Hillary: Sending Katie Couric to Iraq ‘Too Little, Too Late’:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, today said that the decision by CBS to send Evening News anchor Katie Couric to Baghdad, Iraq, was a “desperate move” that she called “too little, too late.”

“When what you’re doing isn’t working, you need to cut your losses and pull out,” said Sen. Clinton, noting that, “Almost a year into the Couric anchorage, CBS News has failed to unite any substantial group of viewers and the evening news landscape remains a hopeless quagmire of sectarian fighting.”

CBS producer Rick Kaplan, however, said that sending a widowed, single mother of two young children into a war zone would “demonstrate that we mean business.”

Mr. Kaplan called on Sen. Clinton to “allow the Couric surge plan time to work, rather than advocating a defeatist strategy of cut-and-run.”

The big question though is whether the perky Katy Couric gets out of the "Green" zone and actually has a chance to see what is going on in Iraq. Al Qaeda knows that the MSM stays in the "safe" part of Baghdad, and bombs accordingly..

NYT: The Spy Chief Speaks NYT: The Spy Chief Speaks

NYT: The Spy Chief Speaks provides the same sort of comic relief as the paper has for the last decade or so, as it lives in its own BDS reality. It starts off with:

After more than a year and a half of administration stonewalling on President Bush’s illegal domestic wiretapping, it was nice to see Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, finally unburden himself in a newspaper interview.

Of course, there was never a finding by a court of illegality... and the President's Article II powers haven't even been litigated here.

Take, for example, his disclosure that the government has eavesdropped without warrants on thousands of telephone calls in which one party was outside the United States. He said the government got warrants to continue spying on the person in the United States only “100 or less” times.

This is what was actually said:

And If a foreign bad guy is calling into the United States, if there's a need to have a warrant, for the person in the United States, you just get a warrant. And so if a terrorist calls in and it's another terrorist, I think the American public would want us to do surveillance of that U.S. person in this case. So we would just get a warrant and do that. It's a manageable thing. On the U.S. persons side it's 100 or less. And then the foreign side, it's in the thousands. Now there's a sense that we're doing massive data mining. In fact, what we're doing is surgical. A telephone number is surgical. So, if you know what number, you can select it out. So that's, we've got a lot of territory to make up with people believing that we're doing things we're not doing.

I read that to mean that when a U.S. person is involved, a warrant is, and always has been, acquired.

After Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to intercept communications between people in the United States and people abroad without a warrant. That is a violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

Maybe, and maybe not. Besides, most of what was being intercepted was purely foreign.

Now we know the law was broken thousands of times. In 100 or so cases, the unlawfully intercepted calls led agents to believe that the person in the United States was a bad actor (Mr. McConnell implied, sort of, that they were terrorists), and the government’s lawyers obtained a warrant. We are still looking for that loophole in the Fourth Amendment.

Obviously, from the quote of McConnell, this conclusion was invented with little regard to reality. And as for the 4th Amdt? That is just silly. It only prevents unreasonable searches, and the U.S. has intercepted international communications during every war since electronic communications became commonplace. No court of final and competent jurisdiction has ever said that international calls with declared enemies of this country have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Besides, even if they did (and they don't), the NSA TSP surveillance of such would still not be unreasonable, given the reality of the threat, and that the interceptions are not being used in criminal prosecutions.

The remainder of the article is more of the same, mischaracterizations of the law and what McConnell said, all pandering to a BDS unreality that bears little if any relationship to what is actually happening.

Transcript: Debate on the foreign intelligence surveillance act Transcript: Debate on the foreign intelligence surveillance act

Transcript of a question and answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell about FISA, the TSP, etc.

Reading the transcript shows the disconnect between those panicked about civil liberties and the reality of what the NSA is doing to combat terrorism. Some of the stuff that I noted here:

- The idea that the NSA coule reverse target Americans and stay within the recent amendment that used the word "directed" instead of "targeted" seems far fetched. That isn't how the NSA operates here. Rather, they target telephone numbers and record stuff coming and going from them. If the targeted number is here in the U.S., a warrant is required.

- The long term problem that precipitated this was that back when FISA was passed into law, most international communications were through the air, interception of such was not deeded to be w/i the U.S., and thus, the more lenient 50 U.S.C. 1801(f)(1) applied. But now most communications are via fiber optics that need to be intercepted at the switches on U.S. soil, and thus, interception moved to 1801(f)(2). Under (f)(1), FISA didn't apply if the target was foreign or the person here was here illegally. Both of those disappear in (f)(2).

- The other thing that changed was that when a second FISC judge looked at the program, it appears that he determined that when there was a mere possibility that one end of a conversation might be in the U.S., and it was tapped at one of those fiber switches in the U.S., FISA was triggered. The problem is that sometimes they don't know the location of both ends of a conversation - notably with satellite calls.

- Finally, as the AG has repeatedly stated, the problem is the paperwork involved - 200 hours per warrant. That is fine for situations where one party is known to be in the U.S. But that is a fraction of the relevant calls, and that FISC judge's ruling was causing a 10x increase in the warrants required - all at the 200 hours per warrant cost.

More FISA Fear-Mongering by Andrew McCarthy More FISA Fear-Mongering by Andrew McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy talks sense on FISA reform in: More FISA Fear-Mongering (the New York Times strikes again). The NYT breathlessly reported that the recently enacted FISA amendment would allow all sorts of implausible incursions into our civil liberties, most of which had nothing to do with international and foreign electronic communications (generically, and not as defined by FISA), the subject of FISA and its recent amendment.

I have gotten a bit tired of hearing about how the "directed" language in the new law can be theoretically, maybe, by Darth Bush (McCarthy's term), perverted to allow indiscriminent tapping of American phones. Never mind that the intelligence community has repeatedly pointed out that they see the language as being essentially equivalent to the "targeted" language of the original FISA. But somehow, it is supposedly possible for a rogue Administration to target Americans by targeting al Qaeda operatives.

Yes, the language may be a tiny bit more lenient than was in effect for interceptions made outside the U.S. (and most of those making these arguments admit that most international communications could be and were tapped "outside" the U.S. when FISA was enacted). But the amendment addressed some real problems with where FISA had gone.

First, the technology had changed significantly since then, to the point where interception outside the U.S. is now technologically infeasible (we are now tapping fiber optics at the switches as the cables come onshore, instead of out of the ether, as was previously done).

Secondly, much purely foreign traffic is intercepted at those same fiber optic switches, as AT&T had kindly routed it through this country, partially at the behest of the NSA (and partially because they are an American company with their infrastructure here). That was fine, since foreign traffic is exempt from FISA - until a FISC judge determined that FISA applies if there is a chance that one end ended up here in the U.S. That might not have been an issue, except that the NSA doesn't always know where both ends are (for example, with satellite phones).

So, if OBL were sitting in his cave on the Afgan/Pakistan border, and used a sattelite phone to call someone, a FISA warrant would now be required, because the NSA couldn't guarantee that the phone call wasn't made from this country.

Those are two big things to keep in mind when talking about the amendment to FISA. First, the big thing it did was change the standard from absolute knowledge to reasonable belief. If they detect OBL, they don't have to worry about whether he sneaked into this country somehow. And that the "directed" language is being interpreted as equivalent to the "targeted" language in 50 U.S.C. 1801(f) (and note that this part of the amendment specifically refers to 1801(f)). The person of interest must be reasonably believed to be outside the U.S. for this provision in the amendment to apply. The idea that someone here can be targeted but the surveillance be "directed" at someone outside the U.S. is just ludicrous. Since "targeted" is really narrower than "directed", this just doesn't work.

Finally, it is only temporary - six months.

Hugh Hewitt intervies Gen. Petraeus Hugh Hewitt intervies Gen. Petraeus

Hugh Hewitt interviewed General David Petraeus on the conditions on the ground in Iraq. Instapundit thinks this is a must read for all of Congress. Of course, they won't, because doing so would likely interfere with their claim that the "Surge" has failed. It hasn't, and the one man who would know, the man at the helm in Iraq, and the designer of it, explains why it is working, in places even better than expected.

Strategypage on Iraq Strategypage on Iraq

I do think that strategypage.com on Iraq is a good source for what is going on there. It doesn't always get down into the details that Yon, Totten, et al. do, but its weekly posts do a decent job at keeping me up to date at a slightly higher level.

Some of its recent observations were that the Iraqi insurgency has always been a Sunni Arab insurgency. For a long time, it primarily involved Baathists paying for a lot of the attacks, and working with foreign terrorists as an expediency. But the recent surge has targetted them, and they and their money are being seized at an increasing rate.

The other thing is that the Sunni Arabs in Iraq have turned on the terrorists because of the wanton bloodshed, mostly of innocent Iraqis. Strict Wahhabi Sharia law doesn't help either. I was surprised that this turning really started three years ago, and not in the last six months. Rather, we are now just seeing the results of that long term process, with most of the Sunni tribes swapping sides and aiding us in ridding their communities of the terrorists, who in the end terrorized the Sunni Arabs hosting them almost as much as they did the Shi'a .

If I have a complaint with strategypage's coverage of the war in Iraq, it is that it is too rah-rah, and some of our problems in the past were glossed over. But still, it is far better coverage than you normally get with the MSM here in the U.S.

Who Is Responsible for the Mess in Mesopotamia? Who Is Responsible for the Mess in Mesopotamia?

TCS Daily: Who Is Responsible for the Mess in Mesopotamia? asks how the MSM can be so clueless about what is going on right now in Iraq. Esp. interesting is their abject refusal to put a name and nationality to the major terrorists in Iraq right now - they are Wahhabi Sunnis, primarily from the Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia. As evidenced by the Anbar tribes switching sides this spring, the Iraqis mostly dislike the Wahhabi strictness, including their imposition of a very strict Sharia law.

As noted, all this is missed, when liberals, the MSM, etc. try to convince everyone that the war in Iraq is lost.

Michael Yon reports from Baquba, Iraq that the surge appears to be working. Michael Yon reports from Baquba, Iraq that the surge appears to be working.

Hugh Hewitt show: Michael Yon reports from Baquba, Iraq that the surge appears to be working.Some of the interview:

HH: I’m joined now by satellite phone from Baghdad by intrepid reporter Michael Yon. He’s actually in Baquba. Michael, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show, always a pleasure to speak with you. How goes the fighting on the ground?

MY: Well, it’s really slowed down here in Baquba, Hugh. I was just in the TOC or the headquarters about fifteen minutes ago before I came on the show, and they were like the Maytag repairmen here. I mean, Baquba has just…you know, it was a very serious fight when it started, Operation Arrowhead Ripper on the 19th of June, I came in with them, but it quickly abated. The people have just turned against al Qaeda here. And so Baquba is really, the big fight now is to get the food distribution working again, which it already is. You know, they’ve got that going. And now, they’re working on fuel, because the fuel relates to electricity and water pumping. So really, they’re working on more civic things now. There’s still some combat to do, but not a lot, actually, because like I said, you know, the people just turned against al Qaeda.

HH: Now Michael Yon, a lot of people don’t know the significance of Baquba. And so can you explain what peace in Baquba means for the larger war effort?

MY: Well, it’s huge, because al Qaeda had claimed Baquba as their capitol, their worldwide capitol. And you might recall one of the things that kind of upsets people about my reporting is I said Iraq was in a civil war, and I said that way back in February of 2005, and I continue to do so. But when I first wrote that, I was in Baquba, in 2005, and I spent two or three months here. And it was just total…you could see it, and you could see al Qaeda was trying to foment that civil war, because that’s their underlying strategy, is to do that. And so getting, fracturing al Qaeda here, and al Qaeda alienating so many Iraqis, it’s helping us to put a damper on the civil war.

HH: Now yesterday, Harry Reid said on the floor of the Senate that the surge has failed. Do you think there’s any factual basis for making that assertion, Michael Yon, from what you’ve seen in Iraq over the last many months?

MY: He’s wrong, he’s wrong. It has absolutely not failed, and in fact, I’m finally willing to say it in public. I feel like it’s starting to succeed. And you know, I’m kind of stretching a little bit, because we haven’t gone too far into it, but I can see it from my travels around, for instance, in Anbar and out here in Diyala Province as well. Baghdad’s still very problematic. But there’s other areas where you can clearly see that there is a positive effect. And the first and foremost thing we have to do is knock down al Qaeda. And with them alienating so many Iraqis, I mean, they’re almost doing it for us. I mean, yeah, it takes military might to finally like wipe them out of Baquba, but it’s working. I mean, I sense that the surge is working. Reid is just wrong.

Yon goes on to say that Baghdad is still problematic, but that al Qaeda is rapidly running out of places to operate from. It can't operate in the south because there aren't any Sunni there, and the Kurds in the north are even less receptive.

The big thing is that a lot of the Sunni Arabs have switched sides. Not so much because of the surge, though that is probably helping, but because of two primary things. First, al Qaeda has overstayed their welcome. Most of the Sunni Arabs that used to work with al Qaeda are not in favor of the strict Sharia law imposed by al Qaeda, esp. when imposed through brutality. And, secondly, they are beginning to realize that we are their best chance at surviving in Iraq, esp. given the ethnic cleansing that had been going on last fall and maybe winter, with them the target.

Michael Yon : Feasting on the Moveable Beast Michael Yon : Feasting on the Moveable Beast

Michael Yon in: Al-Qaeda on the Run: Feasting on the Moveable Beast again brings us the reality of our war in Iraq. Here, he describes a meeting with a leader of the 1920s Revolution Brigades (1920s) who goes by the name Abu Ali. Six months ago, his group was fairly effectively fighting our troops, as well as those of Iraqi government. But then, in April, he came to us and asked for help in fighting al Qaeda. We were more than willing to accept his change of allegance and do some of the heavy lifting. As a result, Burhiz is being rapidly cleaned out of al Qaeda. Some of Yon's blog:

Before the tape was running, I asked Abu Ali why he and the 1920s turned against al Qaeda in Buhriz. Speaking through LT David Wallach, a native Arabic speaker, Abu Ali said that “al Qaeda is an abomination of Islam: cutting off heads, stealing people’s money, kidnapping . . . every type of torture they have done.”

The recent stories of baked children came to mind. I asked if Abu Ali had heard about children being baked. Ali said no, he had not heard such a story, but he would not be surprised if it were true because al Qaeda had done so many crimes, such as cutting off a man’s head, putting it up on a stick and parading it around town.

Ali said people had been afraid in their own homes because of al Qaeda. I asked if he had fought Americans and Ali laughed and said through Wallach, “What kind of question is that?” I chuckled. Unfortunately, we had to go to other meetings, so the time for taping was short. In closing, I asked Abu Ali if there was something he would like to say to Americans. The markets that had been closed under al Qaeda were bustling around us.

Ali thought for a moment as some local people tried to interrupt him with greetings, and he said, “I ask one thing,” and now I paraphrase Ali’s words: “After the Iraqi Army and Police take hold and the security forces are ready, we want a schedule for the leaving of the American forces.”

I have no doubt that the Administration agrees completely with this later sentiment, as do I.

The New York Times Surrenders The New York Times Surrenders

Victor Davis Hanson does his usual superb job of destroying the credibility of the New York Times in: The New York Times Surrenders responding to their article titled "The Road Home". What is really scary is how idiotic the NYT article is. It seems to almost intentionally ignore the reality of the logistics, short term, and long term effects of an immediate pullout. As Hanson points out, the Gray Lady seems to be saying that any resulting genocide or ethnic cleansing is just fine, since it would be George Bush's fault for going into Iraq in the first place.

Bless the Beasts and Children Bless the Beasts and Children

I wasn't sure of the title of this: Michael Yon: Bless the Beasts and Children until I reached the comments. Yon did Pulitzer level work here, documenting an al Qaeda atrocity where they butchered the donkeys and the people of a village they were abandoning as Iraqi and American forces advanced. The dead animals were left on the road, but the people buried, in parts, in a common grave. Kids were beheaded, but it wasn't clear whether their parents had seen the kids killed first, or the kids had to watch their parents being killed, before they themselves were butchered.

In Yon's follow-up article: Update on “Bless the Beasts and Children”, the latest body count is somewhere between ten and fourteen.

The unanswered question in all the comments is why this atrocity hasn't seen the light of day in the various mainstream media news outlets.

Unrest grows amid gas rationing in Iran Unrest grows amid gas rationing in Iran

Unrest grows amid gas rationing in Iran points out that things are not going well right now for the Iranian government:

TEHRAN: Unrest spread in Tehran on Thursday, the second day of gasoline rationing in oil-rich Iran, with drivers lining up for miles, gas stations being set on fire and state-run banks and business centers coming under attack.

And this is primarily a result of trying to ignore basic economics:

The Iranian government had planned for a year to ration gasoline but had postponed the move, fearing unrest. Iran offers the highest subsidies for gasoline in the region, buying foreign gasoline for slightly more than $2 a gallon, according to official figures, and offering it for 34 cents a gallon.
..
The price of subsidized gasoline was raised by 25 percent last month. The new regulation allows private cars 26 gallons of gasoline a month for 34 cents a gallon. Taxis are allowed 211 gallons a month.

This would not be a problem if mass transit were available, but that, along with refinery capacity, were never properly funded. So, Tehran at least has about half the buses it needs, and the people don't have the gas to get to work. But the gas they do get is cheap.

Ahmadinejad's Inflammable Blunder Ahmadinejad's Inflammable Blunder

Pajamas Media: Ahmadinejad's Inflammable Blunder by Meir Javedanfar points out that the Iraqi government, and in particular, their president, have screwed up royally when it comes to gasoline. It is heavily subsidized, costing a fraction of what it should cost. That was because Ahmadinejad used low gas prices to bribe the less wealthy to vote him into the Iranian presidency. But, the problem with an artificially low price is that consumers respond by greatly increasing demand for the product. But Iran, one of the richest countries in the world in terms of oil reserves, imports some 40% of its gasoline, due to a shortage of refineries. Instead of building refineries, which would have helped to reduce this, the government committed to spending money on any number of less urgent, but more politically advantageous products. So, with demand exceeding supply, which is inevitable with subsidized pricing, the government imposed severe rationing. To make matters worse, the purchase of more buses was also left mostly undone, again because infrastructure money was spent elsewhere. The result is not surprising - there are a lot of very angry Iranians right now. Not the rich, because they easily find ways around the gas rationing, but rather, the lower and lower middle classes.

None of this should be a surprise. This is economics 101. But it did point out the failings of the socialist philosophies off the Iranian leaders to understand how economics really works. Of course, if they did understand economics, they probably wouldn't be socialists.