The State Of Ramadi
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Featured Stories | War — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Via Patterico, we have this cheering report.
Read on . . .
Call it Neighborhood Watch, Iraqi-style.
As recently as two months ago, U.S. forces didn't dare stake out the Al Tash neighborhood of this insurgent stronghold in Al Anbar province. Enter 22-year-old Saif Sahed, a go-getter recruit for the Provincial Security Force, a new auxiliary police unit that offers hope for at least a bit of stability in the mean streets of Ramadi.
Sahed lives in Al Tash, the kind of neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and newcomers are immediately noticed -- and in recent years often have been insurgents.
"If I find strangers or strange cars, I go to tell my officer. Last week we found some who were insurgents and they were detained," Sahed said matter-of-factly. "The important thing is to make my neighborhood safe."
Because Sahed is young and illiterate, he ordinarily would not qualify for the Iraqi army or police. But for the last several weeks, he and his ragtag cohorts, wearing castoff army fatigues and numbering about 2,200, have filled crucial intelligence-gathering, patrol and checkpoint functions in the new provincial force.
And some of them, including Sahed, are even going without pay, in hopes of someday getting the chance to join the police force and make $400 a month.
The provincial force is an example of how the United States is adapting its military strategy to changing conditions. It is difficult to imagine U.S. forces earlier in the war arming and training a force made up mainly of unschooled rural Sunni Arab youths and Iraqi army veterans, groups once considered unsuitable for the post-Saddam Hussein security forces.
Today, Sahed and other members of the force are helping staff "joint security stations." The new inner-city military outposts, made up of U.S. and Iraqi forces, give the coalition a presence in areas such as Al Tash that just weeks ago were conceded to the insurgents.
Perhaps the greatest value of such stories is that they show that the United States has the capacity and resources to turn the situation fully around throughout Iraq. Whether it has the will or will afford itself the time is another matter, of course. But declaring the reconstruction effort in Iraq "lost," as Harry Reid recently did, appears to run aground of the facts.
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The State Of Ramadi 3 Comments (0 topical, 3 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
we could iraq well in hand and still not have the support of the majority of americans because the anti-war folks are dominating the debate.
i don't know why the pres and other gop leaders aren't vociferously and steadily defending the war and reminding everyone why we should be there, but they're not doing it much
the marketing effort may decide the war
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
He's waiting until it gets under control enough that he can point and say "Look, it's now stable; I'm beginning drawing down US forces".
It would make all the anti-war arguments all fall down at once.
I just hope it happens during his presidency. He deserves that much.
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Internet member since 1987
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The tide is turning. With some luck, we could possibly have Iraq substantially secured by January 2008.
Wouldn't *that* make for a radically different election year than we've been expecting.
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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community