[Dean's World] Dave Price: Surge Success Continues

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Posted by Dave Price:
Surge Success Continues
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1196704375.shtml


   November saw yet another decrease in the number of [1]Iraqis killed,
   and U.S. casualties [2]declined yet again as well.
   Michael Totten [3]notes the emblematic night-and-day changes in
   Fallujah, once the heart of the insurgency.

     Everywhere I go in Fallujah, I am mobbed by smiling children who
     want me to take their picture. It wasn't always this way.
     "I didn't see a single kid out here in 2005," one Marine told me.
     "If a kid popped out of the house, his parents yanked him right
     back inside." Women walk the streets by themselves now, as well,
     which I'm also told was unheard of not long ago.
     I'm embedded with the Marines. They keep me safe. If I spent too
     long in the city alone and without armed protection, terrorists
     might eventually find me. But any insurgent who shows up and
     announces himself in public won't be rolled up "eventually." He'll
     be arrested by the Iraqi police within minutes. Even the Marines
     are softer on terrorists here than the local cops are.
     Fallujah was once the backbone of the insurgency. Today, as First
     Lt. Barry Edwards put it, "They avoid Fallujah now like it's the
     plague. ... They're afraid of the Iraqis."

   One is struck once again by the notion that the primary issue
   histories of this war will debate is why it took so long to implement
   the strategy of working more closely with locals that ultimately
   brought the conflict to a successful resolution, an outcome that, like
   our victory in the Cold War, may be viewed as being as obvious and
   inevitable in retrospect as conventional wisdom in some circles once
   held our defeat to be.

References

   1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071201/wl_afp/iraqunresttollcivilians
   2. http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200711/NAT20071129b.html
   3. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/12/02/2007-12-02_what_i_see_every_day_in_iraq_locals_turn.html?print=1&page=all