Iraq Study Group: Surge Working, Iran Needs To Be Blocked

They call for a 50% reduction in troop levels... in three years.

After all of the media's and Democrats' howling that we must follow the recommendations of the ISG, what will they say now?

Jeff Emmanuel Also reports from inside the surge.

In April and May of this year, and again from the beginning of August through the present, I have been embedded in some of the most dangerous combat zones in Iraq observing Gen. Petraeus’s strategy from the ground level, and have seen clear signs of the strategy’s effects on the situation there. Security has been improved, as has quality of life for the Iraqi people – many of whom have access, via the coalition, to things like quality medical care that they have never had before, under Saddam or since his fall.

...

Actual combat troop strength is, in reality, still far too low to clear, hold (read: secure), and build – the three pillars of counterinsurgency – the entire country (let alone to nation-build successfully, including leaving behind a functioning, autonomous government); in essence, fewer soldiers than it would take to fill up Washington, DC’s RFK Stadium (the actual percentage of the 140,000 total troops here in Iraq, the majority of which are support troops who rarely leave their FOBs) have been asked to secure and patrol a nation of 27 million people, which is the size of California, while also training Iraqi Security Forces and performing reconstruction projects. However, the troops who have been asked to take on this massive task – while being targeted by terrorists who would rather slaughter their own countrymen in the process of fighting the coalition than actually stand and fight an army toe-to-toe – have stepped up, despite an inhospitable environment and the strain of extended combat tours, and done an admirable job.

They're the 300.

posted by Ace at 07:18 PM

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