Gen. David Petraeus traded the blistering heat of Baghdad for the hot seat on Capitol Hill this week and calmly told hostile anti-war Democrats, Iraq-weary Republicans and frenzied anti-war protesters what none of them wanted to hear:
Yes, the surge is producing measurable results, but no, stabilizing Iraq will not happen on your political timetable.
The Princeton Ph.D., who is now the top commander of American forces in Iraq, told House and Senate members that since the surge began last December:
» Civilian casualties declined 80 percent in Baghdad and 55 percent overall. The most dramatic decrease was in Anbar province, a former al Qaeda stronghold that once accounted for a third of all U.S. casualties; terrorist attacks plunged from 1,350 last October to 200 last month. As the threat of violence receded, more Anbar residents began volunteering for the police force and the Iraqi army.
» Since January, coalition forces have uncovered 4,400 caches of arms, ammunition and explosives — weapons that will not be used against American troops and Iraqi civilians. Petraeus attributed the “sharp decline” in attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) since June to just such weapons seizures.
» Nearly 100 senior leaders and 2,500 lower-ranking members of al Qaeda in Iraq have either been killed or captured, their strongholds have been significantly reduced, and the Iraqi population has slowly begun to support U.S. efforts to expel foreign fighters from their war-torn country.
The military success of the surge is not only a stunning reversal of fortune on a battlefield given up for lost by most Americans less than a year ago, it offers renewed hope that the beleaguered Iraqi people will make the kind of progress that has eluded their elected representatives in Baghdad.
If violence continues to be tamped down, political reconciliation and national reunification can start to take hold at the grassroots level.
Petraeus did not sugarcoat the difficulties of all this happening in an occupied nation still wracked by sectarian conflict and daily attacks by armed insurgents and terrorist groups. “Innumerable challenges lie ahead,” he warned. A “long-term effort” will be needed.
Yet the brilliant architect of the surge also pointed to the only honorable way out of Iraq: withdraw American troops, starting with 2,000 Marines later this month, but slowly, carefully and without ceding the ground so many brave Americans have died to secure.
