There's nothing there:

Everybody is talking about the New York Times op-ed by O’Hanlon and Pollack. Sure, these are the guys who were predicting success from way back in 2003, and were wrong about a number of other Iraq "facts" (like Saddam's WMD program). But set that aside. Here is what the dynamic duo report:

• They spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel.
• The morale of U.S. troops is high.
• Civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began.
• They talked with a Marine captain in Ramadi who is meeting with local Sunni sheiks.
• They walked a street in Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood that is "slowly coming back to life".
• They visited the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul where "reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities".
• Wherever they found a fully staffed Provincial Reconstruction Team, they also found local Iraqi leaders and businessmen cooperating with it.

And they pass on claims by American advisors and command that:

• Many corrupt Iraqis in the military have been removed.
• Three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable.
• Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda.

That's it. Instead of delivering hard numbers that show the situation in Iraq as a whole, or even the restricted areas where the surge is supposed to work, they talk to a Marine captain and walk down a street (apparently the McCain/Graham exercise still impresses some folks). It's pretty close to 100% anecdotal, which is foolish when assessing a military situation.

Oh, and they admit that "we still face huge hurdles on the political front", which is what the surge was intended to allow to move forward.


posted by Quiddity at 7/30/2007 12:09:00 PM