What Are The Factors That Are Helping Iraq To Attain Peace

Bob Woodward

US Spies, Not 'Surge', Reduced Iraq Violence: Book -- The Age

THE 2007 troop "surge", in which President George Bush sent nearly 30,000 additional US combat forces to Iraq, was not the primary factor behind the steep drop in violence there, according to a book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

Rather, Woodward reports, "groundbreaking" new covert techniques enabled US military and intelligence officials to locate and kill insurgent leaders and key individuals in extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008 also says the Bush Administration has run an extensive spying operation on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, his staff and others in the Iraqi Government.

"We know everything he says," says one of multiple sources Woodward cites about the practice in the book, which is scheduled for release on Monday.

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My Comment: This is the new narrative from the mass media and their political allies who (last year) were stating publicly that the surge was not going to work, and that American troops should abandon Iraq ASAP. Thank God President Bush had an alternative point of view.

From my point of view .... Iraq is on the road to peace because of the following factors ....
1) Sunni cooperation
2) the hanging of Sadamn Hussein, the symbol of the Bathist Party .... which helped point #1
3) political compromise and the start of discussions among the many factions
4) elections and the start of some accountability in the Iraqi government
5) hiring 100,000 Sunni militiamen to man check points, and taking them away from the Sunni gangs
6) giving the Kurds a sense of semi-autonomy
7) development and bringing basic services to the slums of Iraq
8) open markets
9) giving Iraqi citizens the hope that their oil wealth will trikle down to their communities
10) a free press
11) a constitution that starts the process of establishing the rule of law and a judicial system
12) putting coalition soldiers onto the streets and supporting those who were rebelling against Al Qaeda cells and gangs
13) supporting the Iraqi Army in their battles with the Mahdi Army, defeating them in every major confrontation and forcing Sadr's capitulation and surrender.
14) working and cooperating with allies and Iraqi supporters in taking Al Qaeda and extremist death squads from the streets. When the above 13 points were achieved, this 14th point was the easiest to succeed.
15) Making sure that American forces were not aligned to any ethnic or religious group. By playing the honest broker, and trying to reach an accommodation with all factions, the U.S. was positioning itself to be the trusted party in Iraq.

The idea that CIA murder squads changed the tempo of the Iraq war by eliminating terror cells .... sorry Mr. Woodward .... they may have wiped out a good number of thugs, but they became successful because of the success in all of the above points.

For my readers, a book that I would recommend to read is the following: The Strongest Tribe by Bing West. His assessment on why the U.S. is succeeding in Iraq hits it on the nail.