American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.
| Don't heave your sigh of relief too deeply. Unless they flat out give up, they're bound to try to make a comeback. Otherwise they lose too much face, or tuban, or whatever the hell it is that they lose. If we're waiting for the first sign and come down on them with both feet as soon as the first whiff of them appears, we'll keep them out, until they make the next try. If we let them hide behind civilians and holy men we'll have to do it all over again, with less support and probably with a commander who's no Petreaus. |
Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June. “Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak,” and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.
| It'll spike again when we take on Sadr City. |
General Fil attributed the decline to improvements in the Iraqi security forces, a cease-fire ordered by the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the disruption of financing for insurgents, and, most significant, Iraqis’ rejection of “the rule of the gun.”
His comments, in a broad interview over egg rolls and lo mein in a Green Zone conference room, were the latest in a series of upbeat assessments he and other commanders have offered in recent months. But his descriptions revealed a city still in transition: tormented by its past, struggling to find a better future. “The Iraqi people have just decided that they’ve had it up to here with violence,” he said, while noting that their demands for electricity, water and jobs have intensified. |