Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

In what is sure to provoke wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Murthaesque cut and run crowd, McQ at The QandO Blog has posted “Iraq’s security picture: Is it really improving?” It’s chock full of easy to read charts that illustrate the progress that has been made in Iraq. Not only can we win, we ARE winning. The only thing that could cause us to lose is a lack of will to finish the job. Even the terrorists admit this (see quote below), so it’s certainly perplexing why the American left, whose patriotism we must never, ever question, can’t see it.

“The policy followed by the brothers in Baghdad is a media oriented policy without a clear comprehensive plan to capture an area or an enemy center. Other word, the significance of the strategy of their work is to show in the media that the American and the government do not control the situation and there is resistance against them.”

No, things aren’t perfect. But all things considered, they’re not that bad, either. Read McQ’s post and check out the charts. McQ concludes

As mentioned, I’ve concentrated on the security because that is where my greatest interest lies. But the economic and political sections are just as informative. And you’ll not see any avoidance of bad news, at least as far as I could tell. For instance, electricity production isn’t where anyone thinks it should be although it is slightly better, apparently, that pre-war generation. And they’re still not happy with the level of oil production.

Take the time to go through the report. I think you’ll find the information it provides is useful in combating the meme which says “the US has no plan” as well as that meme which claims the Iraqis aren’t shouldering enough of the responsibility.

Given this report, and given the progress it charts concerning the ISF, and assuming progress in both the economic and political realms, I think we’ll begin to see major troop reductions in Iraq in mid 2007 to early 2008.

[Updated: Another McQ post, Iraq: al-Rubaie lays out road map for US troop withdrawals, explains why the Democrats have recently pushed for us to get out of Iraq. We are apparently about to get out, and they want the credit for making it happen.]

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