Three-quarters of al-Qaeda in Iraq has been destroyed over the last year, the Interior Ministry in Baghdad has said.
Iraqi and American commanders said the improvement in security in the country over 2007 had been remarkable.
But top US commander Gen David Petraeus warned al-Qaeda remained the greatest threat facing the country and security gains could easily reverse.
But the surge is not working. We should get our troops out now. We have to surrender. Bush and Cheney are incompetent. This news means nothing. zzzzzzzzz
Your headline is misleading. The news story you quoted says only that “...75% of the group’s hideouts in Iraq have been eliminated,” and adds that “this could not be independently verified.”
from the artricle: The fall in violence over the year coincides with the surge in US troop numbers authorised by President George W Bush
Harry Reid and the other democrats/liberals who say the surge is not working are just useful idiots.
The surge is working, and that’s good news.
But realistically, given the fact the Sunnis were fighting us and Al Sadr has admitted he’s keeping his powder dry for now, what probability do you place on the likelihood that the success will be long-term (15-20 years)?
After all, installing the Shah “worked”, at one point.
As long as we don’t have any Jimmy Carter type presidents, maybe we have a chance, but it is a very good question, what will happen in 15-20 years.
Indeed. We can envision Iraq will turn out like Japan or Korea, but the dynamics in this situation are quite different. Not the least of which is the irrationality inherent in Middle East politics.
The American people are also quite fickle. They don’t particularly like throwing tax dollars at government programs that don’t work in the long term.
Tosa - I beg to differ. The American public often continues to fund programs that are not effective, outdated and redundant. See the national budget… We are still funding the program to bring electricity to rural America. The difference is the MSM doesn’t feed the info to the masses because they don’t care.
You either have to be pathetic to believe the MSM is the reason your message doesn’t sell or you have to be schizo to assume it’s out to get you.
The reason the government continues to fund rural electrification is because people are dumb enough to continue to support either party. Fortunately party affiliation is declining, and both dinosaurs will soon be dead.