Category Archives: Strategic

‘Abandonment of the Jews:’ Two views of the NIE from Jerusalem

9 Replies

A certain regular correspondent whose first name is Samuel brought to my attention this piece from The Jerusalem Post. It’s by Caroline Glick, a writer with whom I am unfamiliar (maybe y’all will have time to read her past columns; I can’t do that on a Friday), and it’s headlined, "The Abandonment of the Jews." An excerpt:

    The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on
Iran’s nuclear intentions is the political version of a tactical
nuclear strike on efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs.
    The
NIE begins with the sensationalist opening line: "We judge with high
confidence that in fall 2003, Teheran halted its nuclear weapons
program." But the rest of the report contradicts the lead sentence. For
instance, the second line says, "We also assess with moderate-to-high
confidence that Teheran at a minimum is keeping open the option to
develop nuclear weapons."
    Indeed, contrary to that earth-shattering opening, the NIE
acknowledges that the Iranians have an active nuclear program and that
they are between two and five years away from nuclear capabilities.

While I was there, I also glanced over this piece by David Horovitz, headlined "Bushwhacked." An excerpt:

    But beyond the headlines, a close reading of the
material released from the National Intelligence Estimate offers little
legitimate reason for any sense of relief. Quite the opposite. Along
with the opening judgment that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program
in 2003 comes the immediate caveat that "Teheran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." And then, just a
few paragraphs later, comes an undermining of the original,
headline-making assessment. The authors acknowledge that "because of
intelligence gaps" they can "assess with only moderate confidence that
the halt to these activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear
weapons program."
    After that, the reservations and flat-out terrifying
assessments in this supposedly sanguine estimate flow thick and fast.
The authors state in their opening paragraphs alone: "We do not know
whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." "We
cannot rule out that Iran has acquired from abroad – or will acquire in
the future – a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material for a weapon."
"We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first
produce enough fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so.
Iran resumed its declared centrifuge enrichment activities in January
2006 … [and] made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges
at Natanz."

It occurs to me that when your very survival depends on sound intelligence, you tend to look at these things a little harder, and more critically, than Americans do. Ms. Glick sums up the stakes for Israel in this passage:

    Many commentators applauded the Annapolis
conference, claiming that its real aim was to cement a US-led coalition
including Israel and the Arabs against Iran. These voices argued that
it made sense for Israel to agree to negotiate on bad terms in exchange
for such a coalition. But the NIE shows that the US double-crossed
Israel. By placing the bait of a hypothetical coalition against Iran,
the US extracted massive Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and
then turned around and abandoned Israel on Iran as well. What this
means is that not only has the US cut Israel off as an ally, it is
actively working against the Jewish state.

 

 

Hang in there, Hillary

5 Replies

At the otherwise civilized NPR debate, some of her rivals gave Hillary Clinton grief for doing exactly what she should have done — vote for the resolution aimed at isolating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

This, of course, is in keeping with the fad of the last couple of days, in which everyone projects what they wish the facts to be upon the rather mixed National Intelligence Estimate — you know, the one that said Iran stopped working toward a nuke over here, but over there it kept busy enriching uranium, putting it on track to have enough for a Bomb sometime between 2010 and 2015. (The Israelis, meanwhile, are more pessimistic than their friends over here.)

I’m still waiting for a reason why we should stop doing what we’ve been doing — working with France to keep the pressure on Iran to get it to abandon its nuclear ambitions — but I haven’t heard one yet.

This issue illustrates the flip side of the contradictory role that Mrs. Clinton plays in this election. She’s the embodiment of the hopes of people who want to continue the bloody partisan wars of the past 15 years, and Barack Obama offers the hopeful alternative to that.

Meanwhile, when it comes to actual policy — particularly foreign policy, which is the biggie when you’re talking chief executive in our system — she comes closer than Obama to the kind of Third Way approach once exemplified by her husband, Joe Lieberman, Tony Blair and others. (Example: The way she infuriated some in the base by her refusal to say she regrets her Iraq vote — that is the proper response for someone who is serious about occupying the White House.)

Anyway, when it comes to her Iran vote: You go, Hillary. Pay no attention to those boys.

Waterboarding: Torture or not?

7 Replies

Judge Michael Mukasey seems uncertain on the point of whether "waterboarding" is torture. Others who have tried it seem a bit more decisive. (Both of the following links were brought to my attention by Samuel Tenenbaum, who in real life
thinks about lots of things besides his 55-mph proposal.)

Here’s a video of a guy undergoing the treatment. He gets through it OK — but remember, he knew the guys doing this to him were friendlies, and would eventually stop.

Here’s a written account from another who experienced it. An excerpt:

    Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia — meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.
    The lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again. Call it "Chinese water torture," "the barrel," or "the waterfall." It is all the same.

After reading that, and watching the video, I believe I’d agree with John McCain that this constitutes torture. (Of course, I would be loathe to argue the point in any case with the one presidential candidate who truly knows exactly what he’s talking about when it comes to torture.)

But here’s another question: If you were actually racing against the clock to prevent a terrorist attack that could kill hundreds or thousands, would you do it anyway? Or would you allow others to do it in your behalf? Or would you simply look the other way if they did?

I’ll tell you what got me thinking along those lines. It was the interview with Alan Dershowitz on the above-linked video. He didn’t seem to mind the use of the technique to stop terrorism, as long as there is "accountability." He would want the president of the United States to specifically permit it, in writing. That’s a lawyer for you. Strain at a gnat, miss the camel — or the beam, or whatever.

Personally, I wouldn’t want anybody I’d ever vote for to give permission for such a thing. Nor would I want him to give a nod and a wink, either. If some Jack Bauer-like subordinate did such a thing, without authorization, and did indeed save many lives doing so, I’d be inclined to thank him on behalf of a grateful nation, then prosecute him to the full extent of the law. Unlike Mr. Dershowitz, I think under the circumstances I could live with the inherent contradiction.

But that’s just off the top of my head.
 

Times: Thin Red Line extends into Iran

4 Replies

Just in case you thought that a) the Tommies were bowing out of the fight, or b) nobody in the Western alliance was doing anything but talking about Iran, Réalité EU‘s International Media Intelligence Analysis brings this report to our attention:

SAS Special Forces Ops in Iran
Britain ‘s Sunday Times reports that British SAS and American
and Australian Special Forces have been engaged in operations inside the Iranian
border to interdict weapons shipments. There have been at least half a dozen
intense firefights between the SAS and arms smugglers, a mixture of Iranians and
Shi’ite militiamen. The unreported fighting straddles the border between Iran
and Iraq and has also involved the Iranian military firing mortars into Iraq .
UK commanders are concerned that Iran is using a militia ceasefire to step up
arms supplies in preparation for an offensive against their base at Basra
airport. An SAS squadron is carrying out operations along the Iranian border in
Maysan and Basra provinces with other special forces, the Australian SAS and
American special-operations troops. They are patrolling the border, ambushing
arms smugglers bringing in surface-to-air missiles and components for roadside
bombs. “Last month, they were involved in six significant contacts, which killed
17 smugglers and recovered weapons, explosives and missiles,” a source said. It
was not clear if any of the dead were Iranian.

You’ll notice that our boys are involved too — but that’s on the Q.T.

I don’t deserve the credit

13 Replies

Gas1

After noting that one or two of my correspondents were — and I’m sure they were doing it for convenience’s sake — referring to the gasoline tax hike as "Brad’s taxing scheme," or using similar terms, I thought I’d better set the record straight.

I deserve neither the credit nor the blame. In fact, before I embraced the idea, I went through all the objections that y’all raise — disproportionate burden on the working class, cooling effect on the economy, etc. But I believe this is the best, clearest way to:

  • Spread the burden of fighting terror among ALL of us; it’s obscene that we’re not asked to do a thing beyond being inconvenienced at airports. (And while I worry about the poor as well, it’s interesting that David Brooks seems to think that raising the gas tax is more progressive than the SCHIP program. He must be correlating SUV ownership to wealth, or something.)
  • Cut off funding to some of the worst enemies we have in this world, who are made a little richerGas3
    every time we top off the tank.
  • Push us toward alternative fuels that are not only strategically smarter, in terms of making us less dependent, but much, much friendlier to this endangered orb. It would do this partly by making gasoline less marketable, but it would also…
  • Provide a lucrative new revenue stream to — take your pick — pay for the war, fund our neglected infrastructure, build public transportation (I’ll take light rail, please) and develop better fuels. My pick would be all of the above, if the stream were big enough.

I did not arrive there by myself. I was influenced by an array of other writers, who have hit this theme again and again over the last couple of years.

To answer the question asked by Jimmy Rabbite of prospective band members in "The Commitments," here are my influences, and links to their works:

Robert J. Samuelson
As the economist in the bunch, he presents the idea most credibly, thoroughly and convincingly. If a guy like Samuelson were against the idea, I’d be worried. His being for it gives me confidence in something that I arrive at in a more intuitive manner.

  • An Oil Habit America Cannot Break — October 18, 2006 —…Our main energy problem is our huge dependence on imported oil. For years, some remedies have been obvious: Tax oil heavily to spur Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles and to drive a bit less, raise sharply the government’s fuel economy standards so those vehicles are available, and allow more oil and gas drilling. In recent years, we’ve done none of these things. It’s doubtful we will anytime soon…
  • Greenhouse Guessing — November 10, 2006 — …In rich democracies, policies that might curb greenhouse gases require politicians and the public to act in exceptionallyGas2
    "enlightened" (read: "unrealistic") ways. They have to accept "pain" now for benefits that won’t materialize for decades, probably after they’re dead. For example, we could adopt a steep gasoline tax and much tougher fuel economy standards for vehicles. In time, that might limit emissions (personally, I favor this on national security grounds). Absent some crisis, politicians usually won’t impose — and the public won’t accept — burdens without corresponding benefits…
  • Seven Tough Choices We Will Not Make — January 17, 2007 — …Enact an energy tax equivalent to $2 a gallon on gasoline — introduced over six years, or about 33 cents annually. The purpose: to increase tax revenue and induce Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles….
  • Blindness on Biofuels — January 24, 2007 — …The great danger of the biofuels craze is that it will divert us from stronger steps to limit dependence on foreign oil: higher fuel taxes to prod Americans to buy more gasoline-efficient vehicles and tougher federal fuel economy standards to force auto companies to produce them. True, Bush supports tougher — but unspecified — fuel economy standards. But the implied increase above today’s 27.5 miles per gallon for cars is modest, because the administration expects gasoline savings from biofuels to be triple those from higher fuel economy standards….
  • A Full Tank of Hypocrisy — May 30, 2007 — …Today’s higher gasoline prices mostly reflect supply and demand. "Holiday travelers ignoring fuel costs," headlined USA Today before the Memorial Day weekend. Gasoline demand is up almost 2 percent from 2006 levels. Meanwhile, gasoline supplies have tightened. More refineries than usual shut this spring for repairs — some outages planned, some not (from accidents or dangerous conditions). In April and May, refineries normally operate well above 90 percent of capacity; in 2007, the operating rate was about 89 percent. Imports also declined for many reasons: higher demand in Europe; refinery problems in Venezuela; more gasoline demand from Nigeria. It’s true that oil companies will reap eye-popping profits from high prices. Still, the logic that steep prices, imposed by the market or by taxes, will encourage energy conservation is irrefutable. At the least, high prices would curb the growth of greenhouse gases and oil imports….
  • Prius Politics — July 25, 2007 — …But we’ve got to start somewhere

Up where that ol’ demon lives

6 Replies

A reader, apparently doubting the Energy Party axiom that sharply increasing the price of gasoline via a tax increase would lower consumption, defund our enemies, clean our air, prevent catastrophic climate change and help the Cubs win the World Series, raised this point on my last post:

Hasn’t the price of gas gone up about $1 over the past 2-3 years?
People were saying in 2005 that a $1 increase in the gas tax would
reduce consumption. Did it?

Posted by: Gary | Oct 9, 2007 1:39:59 PM

Yes, it did (go up a dollar) and no it didn’t (depress demand). But I believe that’s because the price was so low to start with — near historic lows, adjusted for inflation.

I’m sort of reminded of one of my favorite books and movies, "The Right Stuff." The filmmakers had the brilliant stroke of having Levon Helm narrate the film, enabling him to say such things as (and you have to hear it in that gravelly Arkansas accent):

There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged
him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would
buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1
on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air
could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through
which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound
barrier.

Well, as it turned out that, to paraphrase Sam Shepard as Yeager, the damned thing didn’t even exist. At least, it didn’t exist in the sense of being something that would rip your ears off if you tried to go through it. So test pilots kept pushing the limit back. When Scott Crossfield actually passed Mach 2, Jack Ridley (also portrayed by Levon Helm), assures Yeager et al. that there are still frontiers to be challenged:

The real test wasn’t Mach 2. That demon lives at about 2.3 on your machmeter.

So it is that I find myself saying that ol’ demon that’ll kill the SUV wasn’t really to be found at $3 a gallon. That demon lives more at about $4 or $5 on your gas pump.

Kidding aside, I think an immediate, all-at-once increase of a dollar or even two — something that can only be achieved with a tax increase — would have a shock effect that gradual increase would not. The debate leading up to such an increase would be filled with such emotion, such doomsday moaning and crying, that when it actually happened, it would have a tremendous psychological effect.

Admittedly, that effect might wear off if that was then the permanent price, as others have suggested and I have endorsed. But even if consumption crept back up, less of the money would be going to the petrodictators, and more would be going into paying for research for ways to become independent of those sources for good.

Mercury

Time to get real in Iraq debate

14 Replies

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
NOW THAT we’ve put a fortnight and more between us and the Petraeus testimony, can we go ahead and have a realistic, honest, come-to-Jesus kind of discussion about Iraq?
    I think we can. The “surge” has created that opportunity.
    The idea behind Gen. David Petraeus’ strategy was this: Apply enough force in the right places, and you can create a secure space in which a political settlement can be achieved.
    The promised measure of security has been achieved. Just as importantly, there is broader acceptance in this country that significant U.S. forces will be staying in Iraq for some time. The consistently implied threat that we might yank our troops out at any moment contributed greatly to insecurity in that nation — encouraging terrorists, and discouraging would-be allies from working with us against the terrorists.
    For the moment, that threat is gone. If it wasn’t obvious before, it was certainly on display at a Democratic candidates’ debate at Dartmouth last week. The three candidates most likely to win their party’s presidential nomination moved beyond the fantasy that’s been offered too often to their base — that we could have the troops out of Iraq before George W. Bush leaves the White House. They acknowledged that in fact, we can’t even promise to be out by the time the next president’s first term is up in 2013.
    That was a significant step. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have walked a razor’s edge for some time, trying to say things that please the “pull ’em out now!” constituency, while at the same time leaving themselves room to be pragmatic and sensible later on, should they be so fortunate as to find themselves in a general election campaign.
    This can sometimes lead to dissonance. For instance, in the debate, Barack Obama repeated confusing assertions he made in an op-ed column in The State, in which he first said “all of our combat brigades should be out of Iraq by the end of next year.” But his very next words were “We will then need to retain some forces to strike at al-Qaida in Iraq.” OK, if all of the combat units are out, what will we “strike at” them with? Boy Scouts? Or will the units used to “strike” be smaller than brigade strength? If so, how effective do we think they’ll be? Isn’t this a return to the “less is more,” minimalist force approach that led to the failures of the thoroughly discredited Donald Rumsfeld? If we’re going to free up “combat brigades” from other, nonspecified tasks, why don’t we send them after al-Qaida too?
    But the magic number “2013” provides a measure of clarity. It says, We’re there. We’re going to be there. So what are we going to do now?
    The question works both ways. Once Democrats accept that we can’t bug out, they can start getting real about what maintaining a commitment means. One answer was offered last week. The Senate majority took a break from futile, please-the-base gestures long enough to join in a bipartisan resolution supporting the idea of dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions — a proposal long advocated by Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sam Brownback.
    But “What next?” applies with equal force to Republicans who backed the “surge” all along: Now that our soldiers have done their job, where’s the political settlement in Baghdad?
    Sen. Lindsey Graham surprised some last week when he told TIME magazine that he’s willing to give the Maliki government until Christmas to get its act together, and not much more than that.
    What? Is one of the biggest fans of the surge, as “never say die” as anyone, ready to throw in the towel? No. But with the U.S. military having done, and continuing to do, its job, no one can make excuses for an Iraqi government that doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity thus provided.
    “The challenges and the problem areas in Iraq are not lost on me as a big fan of the surge,” he told me over the phone Friday. “I’m trying to let people know that when you say the political is not moving at the appropriate pace, I agree with you, and I acknowledge” it.
    “I want people to acknowledge the security gains, because they’re real, and quit trying to minimalize them. That’s just not fair.” Nor would it be fair or reasonable, he suggested, for him or anybody else to make excuses for political stalemate.
    “I would be the first to say, 90 days from now, if they haven’t delivered anything… regarding the major political reconciliation benchmarks, that it would be clear to me they’ve gone from just being dysfunctional to a failure,” Sen. Graham said.
    At that point, “We need to look at a new model: Is it wise to give more money to the same people when it’s clear they don’t know what they’re doing, or are incapable of performing?”
    That does not, of course, mean pulling our troops out. It is the continued troop presence that gives us the options we have — and puts the onus on the Iraqi government.
    For his part, Sen. Graham was not among the three-fourths of the Senate that endorsed Sen. Biden’s partition. To him, giving in to the idea that Sunni and Shi’a can never live together is as objectionable as endorsing Apartheid as a way of keeping the peace in South Africa.
    Others disagree. But the wonderful thing is that we are now disagreeing about a way forward, rather than arguing about how quickly we can back out.
    With progress like that, I can actually believe that a political solution can be achieved — in Iraq and, yes, even in Washington.

Graham sets Iraq deadline: 90 days

9 Replies

This was just brought to my attention:

    Sen. Lindsey Graham, a pivotal Republican vote in the U.S. Senate on Iraq policy, is willing to give the government of Iraq until Christmas to get its act together.
    But not much more.
    Graham told TIME Wednesday that the Iraqi leaders have 90 days to start resolving their political differences with real legislative agreements or face a change in strategy by the U.S. "If they can’t do it in 90 days," he said, "it means the major players don’t want to." …

I’m going to see if I can get ahold of Lindsey for some elaboration…

You gotta keep ’em separated

8 Replies

Just now I was listening to the latest Democratic debate and heard Biden talking about Iraq partition, and it reminded me — I’ve gotten exactly zero feedback from our lead editorial Sunday. It took a big new step in the direction of the Biden-Brownback plan, of which I had previously been leery.

Did anybody read it? Did you have any thoughts about it?

Wonkish offerings from Romney, Obama

2 Replies

And for all you substantive-policy freaks out there, here are two appropriately dense offerings, which came to me in back-to-back e-mails today.

First, I got this note from William Holley, a very nice young man with the Romney campaign:

Good morning everyone –

 Please take a moment to look at Governor Romney’s newly
released Strategy for a Stronger America – a compilation of  more than 50 policy
proposals covering everything from fighting radical jihad to achieving energy
independence to ending illegal immigration to controlling federal spending.  You
can even download your very own copy, absolutely free of
charge.


Introducing the Strategy for a Stronger America, Governor
Romney wrote: "Our future depends on our willingness to hold to the principles
that have guided and built our nation.  It depends on the character and
sacrifices of the American people.  And it depends on leadership to craft and
implement a Strategy for a Stronger America." 

— Will

Right next to that was another earnest release from Barack Obama, which I invite y’all to read and tell me what you think of it. I MIGHT be able to wade through the highlights of a strategic-vision document, but it’s more than I can bear to obsess over tax policy — although I have great respect for Obama for doing so, because there’s a world full of folks out there who care about such:

Obama
Announces Major Middle Class Tax Relief Plan
Embargoed
Remarks Provided Below

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Barack Obama today announced a bold and innovative plan to reform America’s tax code so that it works for the middle class in a speech to the Tax Policy Center in Washington, DC. Obama’s plan would provide a substantial tax cut for nearly all working Americans, for homeowners, and for low- and middle-income seniors.   

Obama made the case that our current tax code reflects the wrong priorities by rewarding wealth instead of work, and he pledged to restore fairness to the tax code to strengthen the American economy.

Obama’s middle class tax relief plan would provide $80-85 billion in tax cuts to America’s workers, seniors and homeowners by:

  • Cutting taxes for 150 million Americans and their families,
    allowing them to get a tax cut of up to $1000.
  • Easing the burden on the middle class by providing a
    universal homeowner’s tax credit to those who do not itemize their deductions,
    immediately benefiting 10 million homeowners, the majority of whom make under
    $50,000 per year.
  • Eliminating the income tax for any American senior making
    less than $50,000 per year, eliminating income taxes for about 7 million
    American seniors.
  • Simplifying tax filings so millions of Americans can do
    their taxes in less than 5 minutes.

Obama would pay for his tax reform plan by closing corporate
loopholes, cracking down on international tax havens, closing the carried
interest loophole, and increasing the dividends and capital gains rate for the
top bracket.

The plan can be viewed in full HERE.

That infuriating John McCain, or, How do you pitch to a hero?

6 Replies

Mccain1

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
HOW ARE YOU supposed to do your job with professional detachment when every time you see one of the main guys running for president, every time you read about him, every time he opens his mouth or takes an action in public, you think, “Hero”?
    How are you supposed to keep your rep when you keep thinking, I admire this guy? Of all things, admire! It’s embarrassing.
    On top of that, how do you do it when so many of the smart, hip, unfettered, scalpel-minded professionals around you snort when the hero’s name is mentioned, and use terms like “has-been” and “loser” and “that poor old guy”?
    It’s not easy. Maybe it’s not even possible. It wasn’t possible on Monday, when John McCain visited our editorial board.
    I presided as usual, asking most of the questions and so forth. But I never quite hit my stride. I was uneasy; I stumbled in bringing forth the simplest questions. It was weird. I’d pitched to this guy a number of times before with no trouble, even in post-season play. And here he was stepping up to bat in my ball park, where the rubber on the mound has molded itself to my cleats, and I can’t put a simple fastball over the plate, much less a curve.
    I kept remembering our last formal meeting with him, in 2000, on the day that we would decide whomMccain3
to endorse in a GOP primary that would either slingshot him onward toward victory, or enable George W. Bush to stop his insurgency cold. I wasn’t out of sorts like this. I had stated my case — my strong belief that we should endorse Sen. McCain — several days before in a 4,000-word memo to my then-publisher, a committed Bush man. I was fully prepared to make it again to the full board once the candidate left the room. And I was ready to lose like a pro if it came to that. Which it did.
    But now, 9/11 has happened. The nation is at war, and bitterly divided, even over whether we’re “at war.” And I keep thinking — as I sit a couple of feet from the candidate, aiming my digital camera with my left hand, scribbling the occasional haphazard note with my right, glancing from time to time at the audio recorder on the table to note how many minutes into the interview he said such-and-such, so busy recording the event that I don’t really have time to be there — this is the guy who should have been president for the past seven years.
    The odd thing is, a lot of people who now dismiss the McCain candidacy also believe he should have been president — that we’d be less divided at home, more admired abroad, more successful at war. But they talk like the poor old guy missed his chance. It’s like candidates have “sell by” dates stamped on them like bacon, and his was several years back. Too bad for him, they say. But I think, too bad for the nation — if they’re right.
    The best thing for me, as a professional critic, as a jaded observer, would be for those people to be right. I have no trouble assessing the relative merits of the other candidates in either major party. I even like some of them. Life could be good, professionally speaking, if that old “hero” guy really did just fade away.
    But he doesn’t. There he is, sitting there, being all honest and straightforward and fair-minded and brave and admirable. Dang.
    Go ahead, get mad at him. He’s let the moment get away from him. You can’t take a man seriously as a leader when he’s blown all that money only to lose ground, when he can’t stop his hired rats from diving overboard. Focus on his mottled scars. Murmur about how even the best of men slow down with age.
    But then you think about how this guy aged early. You look at his awkwardness as he holds his coffee cup, and you think about how the North Vietnamese strung him up by his broken arms, and all he had to do to end it was agree to go home. But he wouldn’t.
    That was then, of course, but it’s just as bad now. Think about how you asked him several months ago why he thought he had to do something about immigration now, when the only people who cared passionately about the issue and would vote on the basis of that one thing were the ones who would hate him forever for being sensible about it. He had no excuse; he just thought it was the right thing to do.
Mccainstarbucks
    You think of all the Democrats and “moderates” who egged him on when he was Bush’s No. 1 critic (which he still is, if you actually listen), but who now dismiss him as the president’s “lapdog” because he (gasp!) — supports the surge and actually, if you can stand it, thinks it’s working! These political goldfish forget that their favorite maverick criticized Bush for not sending enough troops, so of course he supports a “surge” when the president knuckles under and implements one.
    Oh, but don’t speak of such people dismissively. This ridiculously admirable guy at the end of the table, who long ago forgave both his communist torturers and the protesters at home who would have spit on him given the chance, won’t have it. When I speak less than flatteringly of the impatience of Americans on Iraq, he corrects me, and relates a list of perfectly good reasons for them to be fed up.
    So when it’s over, you try to produce a McCain column for Wednesday, but you can’t. Wednesday, Sam Brownback steps to the same plate, and your arm is fine. You interrogate the guy, assess him, reach a conclusion, and slap a column on the Thursday page. Three up, three down. You’ve got your stuff back.
    But Sunday’s deadline draws nearer, and it’s gone again. Desperate, you think: How about a bulleted list of what he said Monday? There’s plenty of it. Naw, that’s a news story, not an opinion column.
    And you know, you just know, that the one thing you can’t write is the truth, which is that you just admire the hell out of this infuriating old guy. The fans won’t stand for it. You can hear the beer bottles clattering around you on the mound already.
    But it’s no use. You just can’t get the ball across today.

For actual information regarding the McCain interview, and more, go to http://blogs.
thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Mccain4

John McCain videos

Leave a reply

Here are clips from portions of the editorial board’s meeting with John McCain on Monday. These, as usual on this blog, were shot by me with my little Canon digital still camera that also shoots short video clips.  You can find some higher-quality video from the meeting, shot by Andy Haworth of thestate.com, by following this link.

xxxxxxxx

"The Surge is Winning:"
McCain on Iraq

xxxxxxxx

"They didn’t believe us:"
Why the immigration bill failed

xxxxxxxx

Why we don’t need a draft:
McCain on the military

xxxxxxxx

"Look at the Region:"
The War on Terror, beyond Iraq

xxxxxxxx

"I’m prepared:"
Why he can, and should, win in 2008

   

‘Burn, Baby, Burn’: Team Swamp Fox destroys opium worth millions

4 Replies

Counterfeit

Just received the latest dispatch from our man on the Kandahar front. Here’s the PDF file of the full report. Here are some excerpts:

Southern Afghanistan 16 AUG 2007
Dear Family and Friends:
Well, three months, 25% of the deployment has passed and Team Swamp Fox is doing very well and making measurable progress mentoring the Afghan National Police (ANP). Since we began combat operations in our AO we have only had one day off. There is a great deal of work to be done and much terrain to be covered. There has been so much that has happened since my last update I am finding it very difficult to begin.

What follows is a series of pictures from numerous missions over the past several weeks which illustrate the challenges the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) faces in eliminating Taliban and Al Qaeda without and the corruption within. I am encouraged each day by my fellow Swamp Fox teammates as well as my ANP counterparts. As you know from my previous emails the ANP is struggling to clean its house of those that would rape, steal and murder the population they are charged with protecting. One of the most encouraging signs developing here is the team of ANP “Regulators” that Team Swamp Fox is mentoring. This is only one of our many responsibilities working with the ANP.

The Regulators are established to receive additional specialized training to exemplify the high standards that should be present in the ANP and be the enforcement of those standards on other ANP throughout the Province at the direction of the Provincial Police Chief. We know that we, the US or ISAF, cannot bring about the necessary and sustainable change ourselves. It must come within the ANP itself. To see ANP officers correcting others and being proud of the uniform they wear and proud of their service to their country gives us all encouragement. Just as impressive to us has been the devotion that has developed in the Regulators for the members of Team Swamp Fox and us for them. When the Regulators finish their training, they will then train others and those will train others and those others and so on.

As you can see from these photos we have demanded a great deal from them and they have met the challenge with each mission and with each training day and as a result security is improving….

Burn baby burn… Millions worth of raw opium goes up in smoke. It took more than a day for it to completely burn. Had these drugs not been destroyed, they would most likely have been processed for sale in the UK and US and the proceeds of which would be used to support TB and Al Qaeda.

Stacks of counterfeit US $100 Dollar bills created in another nearby country unfriendly to US interests to be exchanged into Afghan currency and used to support the TB and Al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan….

Having ANP ANA and American and Romanian Soldiers descend upon your home early in the morning can be an unnerving experience no matter your age. With every action we take we accompany an Information Operation (I/O) campaign so that we communicate the “who,” “what” and “why” we are present. By performing the cordon and search with the I/O campaign we connect with the locals and communicate the importance of their help and we send a clear message to the enemy…

TalibanThe Face of the Enemy… – One of the suspected Taliban fighters charged with
possession of illegal weapons,  ammunition, rocket and bomb making material in his  compound….

One of the best parts of the job is the kids. The first thing is they remind me of my own children at home and how proud I am of them. When seeing and Kids
speaking with the children and knowing the environment they are growing up in
how could you want anything else that for them than to have a secure and peaceful place in which to grow and learn. The girl’s school, which of course did not exists when the Taliban were in charge, is doing a fantastic job and the courses in both the boys and girls schools look very familiar and remind me of the challenges I had with such subjects as chemistry, algebra, physics and
geometry. They are also being taught English and they are all too proud to share
their knowledge as they point and say “bird” or “boy.”…

We all are privileged to serve our Country in this way. As do all who are deployed away from home, we miss our families and friends and we hope with each days work that it in some way merits the loss of our time with our families … that our work is making a difference. Even more so for those who have given all their tomorrows for this cause, we commit ourselves every morning to making sure that we leave this place better than we found it so that this place, Afghanistan, will never again be a place that exports the terrorism we saw visited upon our Nation on September 11, 2001. We have not forgotten why we are
here.

He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust. Psalm 91
Cheers, J

Beau_geste

McCain on The Extremely Dramatic and Sincere Showdown in the Senate

4 Replies

I hadn’t really paid much attention to the "filibuster" going on last night, because I’ve been extremely busy (Mike called in sick today, so I’m doing all our production today again on top of my regular job, which doesn’t have anything to do with blogging, either), and because, well — they didn’t do it for me.

They did it as a show for all those really, really emotional people out there who want to see them trying really hard to magically make the Iraq war go away. They don’t intend to make the war go away, of course, because they don’t have the slightest idea how to do that, because it’s not possible to get a 60-vote majority together to do it (David Brooks, to whom I can’t link because he’s New York Times, so sorry, spelled out the senatorial math on that a few days ago), and, I suspect, because some of them are smart enough to realize it would be crazy to pull out, they’re just not about to say so out loud.

OK, I was really guessing on that last reason, so if it’s not true, sorry again.

Anyway, John McCain is a U.S. senator and doesn’t have the luxury of not paying attention to the histrionics. If I were in his position — forced to deal with such theater as though it were a real thing going on in the real world (like the war itself) — I’d probably say something like what he said on the Senate floor this morning:

    Mr. President, we have nearly finished this little exhibition, which was staged, I assume, for the benefit of a briefly amused press corps and in deference to political activists opposed to the war who have come to expect from Congress such gestures, empty though they may be, as proof that the majority in the Senate has heard their demands for action to end the war in Iraq. The outcome of this debate, the vote we are about to take, has never been in doubt to a single member of this body. And to state the obvious, nothing we have done for the last twenty-four hours will have changed any facts on the ground in Iraq or made the outcome of the war any more or less important to the security of our country. The stakes in this war remain as high today as they were yesterday; the consequences of an American defeat are just as grave; the costs of success just as dear. No battle will have been won or lost, no enemy will have been captured or killed, no ground will have been taken or surrendered, no soldier will have survived or been wounded, died or come home because we spent an entire night delivering our poll-tested message points, spinning our soundbites, arguing with each other, and substituting our amateur theatrics for statesmanship. All we have achieved are remarkably similar newspaper accounts of our inflated sense of the drama of this display and our own temporary physical fatigue. Tomorrow the press will move on to other things and we will be better rested. But nothing else will have changed.
    In Iraq, American soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are still fighting bravely and tenaciously in battles that are as dangerous, difficult and consequential as the great battles of our armed forces’ storied past. Our enemies will still be intent on defeating us, and using our defeat to encourage their followers in the jihad they wage against us, a war which will become a greater threat to us should we quit the central battlefield in defeat. The Middle East will still be a tinderbox, which our defeat could ignite in a regional war that will imperil our vital interests at risk there and draw us into a longer and far more costly war. The prospect of genocide in Iraq, in which we will be morally complicit, is still as real a consequence of our withdrawal today as it was yesterday.
    During our extended debate over the last few days, I have heard senators repeat certain arguments over and over again. My friends on the other side of this argument accuse those of us who oppose this amendment with advocating "staying the course," which is intended to suggest that we are intent on continuing the mistakes that have put the outcome of the war in doubt. Yet we all know that with the arrival of General Petraeus we have changed course. We are now fighting a counterinsurgency strategy, which some of us have argued we should have been following from the beginning, and which makes the most effective use of our strength and does not strengthen the tactics of our enemy. This new battle plan is succeeding where our previous tactics have failed, although the outcome remains far from certain. The tactics proposed in the amendment offered by my friends, Senators Levin and Reed a smaller force, confined to bases distant from the battlefield, from where they will launch occasional search and destroy missions and train the Iraqi military are precisely the tactics employed for most of this war and which have, by anyone’s account, failed miserably. Now, that, Mr. President, is staying the course, and it is a course that inevitably leads to our defeat and the catastrophic consequences for Iraq, the region and the security of the United States our defeat would entail.
    Yes, we have heard quite a lot about the folly of "staying the course," though the real outcome should this amendment prevail and be signed into law, would be to deny our generals and the Americans they have the honor to command the ability to try, in this late hour, to address the calamity these tried and failed tactics produced, and salvage from the wreckage of our previous failures a measure of stability for Iraq and the Middle East, and a more secure future for the American people.
     I have also listened to my colleagues on the other side repeatedly remind us that the American people have spoken in the last election. They have demanded we withdraw from Iraq, and it is our responsibility to do, as quickly as possible, what they have bid us to do. But is that our primary responsibility? Really, Mr. President, is that how we construe our role: to follow without question popular opinion even if we believe it to be in error, and likely to endanger the security of the country we have sworn to defend? Surely, we must be responsive to the people who have elected us to office, and who, if it is their wish, will remove us when they become unsatisfied with our failure to heed their demands. I understand that, of course. And I understand why so many Americans have become sick and tired of this war, given the many, many mistakes made by civilian and military leaders in its prosecution. I, too, have been made sick at heart by these mistakes and the terrible price we have paid for them. But I cannot react to these mistakes by embracing a course of action that I know will be an even greater mistake, a mistake of colossal historical proportions, which will — and I am as sure of this as I am of anything seriously endanger the people I represent and the country I have served all my adult life. I have many responsibilities to the people of Arizona, and to all Americans. I take them all seriously, Mr. President, or try to. But I have one responsibility that outweighs all the others and that is to do everything in my power, to use whatever meager talents I posses, and every resource God has granted me to protect the security of this great and good nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. And that I intend to do, Mr. President, even if I must stand athwart popular opinion. I will explain my reasons to the American people. I will attempt to convince as many of my countrymen as I can that we must show even greater patience, though our patience is nearly exhausted, and that as long as there is a prospect for not losing this war, then we must not choose to lose it. That is how I construe my responsibility to my constituency and my country. That is how I construed it yesterday. It is how I construe it today. And it is how I will construe it tomorrow. I do not know how I could choose any other course.
     I cannot be certain that I possess the skills to be persuasive. I cannot be certain that even if I could convince Americans to give General Petraeus the time he needs to determine whether we can prevail, that we will prevail in Iraq. All I am certain of is that our defeat there would be catastrophic, not just for Iraq, but for us, and that I cannot be complicit in it, but must do whatever I can, whether I am effective or not, to help us try to avert it. That, Mr. President, is all I can possibly offer my country at this time. It is not much compared to the sacrifices made by Americans who have volunteered to shoulder a rifle and fight this war for us. I know that, and am humbled by it, as we all are. But though my duty is neither dangerous nor onerous, it compels me nonetheless to say to my colleagues and to all Americans who disagree with me: that as long as we have a chance to succeed we must try to succeed.
     I am privileged, as we all are, to be subject to the judgment of the American people and history. But, my friends, they are not always the same judgment. The verdict of the people will arrive long before history’
s. I am unlikely to ever know how history has judged us in this hour. The public’s judgment of me I will know soon enough. I will accept it, as I must. But whether it is favorable or unforgiving, I will stand where I stand, and take comfort from my confidence that I took my responsibilities to my country seriously, and despite the mistakes I have made as a public servant and the flaws I have as an advocate, I tried as best I could to help the country we all love remain as safe as she could be in an hour of serious peril.

MacGyver on patrol in Afghanistan

18 Replies

Macgyver

Our citizen-soldier correspondent today sent us our first glimpses of his Team Swamp Fox on patrol in the vicinity of Kandahar.

Here are excerpts from his report, which I include here in PDF format:

While our work at times may involve direct action against the enemy, we achieve our biggest victories by building relationship with the people. And that
takes time… lots of it….

A child’s heart is a loving heart… The children are always the first to great us and they have no doubt been conditioned a bit as US soldiers at times give treats while they pass but it always reminds me of my alma mater’s, the University of South Carolina’s motto – “Education humanizes the heart and does not permit it to be cruel.” I have never seen that pronounced so clearly and with such exclamation as when I pass each day and village and people here. And I believe the converse of that is true. A heart of hatred has to be trained and conditioned to hate… Those that would follow the Taliban and intentionally kill themselves and those completely innocent with them have to be taught to hate us and others like us. Despite our different languages and cultures and vastly different wealth… as peoples those things really important in life we share. The value of our families and our communities and a desire for the opportunity for our families to live and grow in a safe, healthy, peaceful and secure environment.

Children

Video: Graham, Lieberman, others on Iraq

2 Replies

Just got this video release. I haven’t even had time to look at it — except to see that Lindsey Graham (whose office sent it) and Joe Lieberman appear on the screen. It appears initially to be about this:

AP-BC WAR POST
//Senate Signals Move Toward Major Change in Iraq Strategy//(Washn)
By Shailagh Murray and Jonathan

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan consensus to dramatically alter the U.S. military mission in Iraq began to emerge Wednesday in the Senate, but no specific approach has yet attracted the broad support necessary for a veto-proof majority.

… Wednesday, on the first in a series of Iraq amendments to the annual
defense policy bill, seven GOP senators voted with Democrats to break a
Republican filibuster of a proposal from Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., to
require longer troop rest periods between combat deployments. Six of
the seven Republicans are vulnerable 2008 incumbents. The effort still
failed 56 to 41, with 60 votes needed for passage. But the seven
Republican votes were surprising, considering that a similar measure in
the House last spring was roundly denounced by Republicans as a "slow
bleed strategy."…

I’ve got several hours of work before I can stop to review it myself. You look, and react if you choose…

Moving forward in Iraq — the one good idea

52 Replies

The Wonderland of Washington, driven by polls and 24/7 TV, is its own, separate reality. Unfortunately, the TV-watching public and partisan activists think it’s the reality.

Meanwhile, over in Iraq, the surge is doing what it was intended to do, as this piece back on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal — under the appropriate headline, "Moving Forward in Iraq" — reports:

    In Washington perception is often mistaken for reality. And as Congress prepares for a fresh debate on Iraq, the perception many members have is that the new strategy has already failed.
    This isn’t an accurate reflection of what is happening on the ground, as I saw during my visit to Iraq in May. Reports from the field show that remarkable progress is being made. Violence in Baghdad and Anbar Province is down dramatically, grassroots political movements have begun in the Sunni Arab community, and American and Iraqi forces are clearing al Qaeda fighters and Shiite militias out of long-established bases around the country.
    This is remarkable because the military operation that is making these changes possible only began in full strength on June 15. To say that the surge is failing is absurd. Instead Congress should be asking this question: Can the current progress continue?

That’s the way it starts. I hope the link works so that you can read the whole thing. The next  10 or so paragraphs go into greater detail about the ways in which the surge is working. The author, Kimberly Kagan, is "an affiliate of Harvard’s John M. Olin Institute of Strategic Studies, is executive director of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. She even tries to express some optimism about Mr. Maliki’s efforts to achieve the strategic aim of the surge, a political solution. That part is somewhat less convincing. But the part about what our military is achieving is convincing.

What would be wonderful — what we owe our troops — is to praise and applaud and encourage what they are accomplishing. But that’s not what we’re doing back in this country, is it?

The piece ends this way:

    This is war, and the enemy is reacting. The enemy uses
suicide bombs, car bombs and brutal executions to break our will and
that of our Iraqi allies. American casualties often increase as troops
move into areas that the enemy has fortified; these casualties will
start to fall again once the enemy positions are destroyed. Al Qaeda
will manage to get some car and truck bombs through, particularly in
areas well-removed from the capital and its belts.
    But we should not allow individual atrocities to
obscure the larger picture. A new campaign has just begun, it is
already yielding important results, and its effects are increasing
daily. Demands for withdrawal are no longer demands to pull out of a
deteriorating situation with little hope; they are now demands to end a
new approach to this conflict that shows every sign of succeeding.

Indeed. And that demand is coming from both Democrats and Republicans. What is happening in this country is an appalling spectacle.

Appetite for victory: Can we get hungry by September?

12 Replies

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
HOPE CAN come suddenly from the oddest directions. It can also be just as quickly dashed. But quickness to seize upon it can, if nothing else, be a measure of how badly we want it — and need it.Thursday

    Page A4 of Thursday’s paper was topped with this proclamation: “U.S. shows appetite for victory.” I hadn’t encountered such an encouraging headline in quite a while. But my joy was short-lived: It was about an American winning the world title for eating the most hot dogs in a 12-minute period (66), defeating six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.
    Take whatever satisfaction and pride from that you can. I’m still hoping the nation develops an appetite for something that it might find harder to choke down.
    Lower on the same page was the subject I was thinking of: President Bush, in speaking to a Fourth of July National Guard gathering, said victory in Iraq “will require more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.”
    The bitter irony of Iraq is that we have far more reason to have confidence in the troops’ courage and willingness to sacrifice than in the public’s patience.
    “However difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it,” Mr. Bush said. “We must succeed for our own sake.”
    He’s right. He might not be right about much else, but he’s right about that.
    If you go to NPR.org, you’ll find this headline on an item I heard over my clock radio as I was waking Thursday morning: “Military: Iraq strategy can work, over years.” Below that is a blurb: “Most military strategists say it is a feasible plan, but it could take three to five years to see results.”
    Exactly. And how far off is the September update on the surge? Hmmm. Not nearly far enough.
NPR Defense Correspondent Guy Raz reported the following regarding the surge:
    “(T)here are signs of its working.” But “the lifeblood of the strategy requires two main elements — commodities that commanders don’t really have, which is time, and troop strength.”
    So much for military reality. He then switched to political reality, which is far more dire: “Ultimately, of course, with pressure coming down from Congress and the American public, military commanders in         Iraq know that they… simply may not have those commodities.”
    He expects the Pentagon to try to play down expectations of Gen. David Petraeus’ September report as “make or break,” and it should.
    But we seem to lack the appetite for any such dish as patience. The general’s subtext for the September report is that Congress and amorphous “public opinion” will view it with the following attitude: Are we done? Can we go now? Few seem prepared to conclude: OK, this can work, but it’s going to take a lot more time.
    With multiple presidential candidates already reinforcing the “are we there yet?” mood, there’s just no way that the folks in TV land are going to suddenly adopt patience as their operative mode, and give military commanders the time that they need. And yet that patience, that appetite, is something we must develop.
    Unfortunately, the president keeps telling us this. That would be an odd way to put it in any other historical context, but in 2007, our commander-in-chief is the one guy least likely to persuade the public to do something it doesn’t want to do (which is the definition of leadership).
    Here’s how bad things are: The candidate for 2008 most clearly identified with his determination to provide commanders with the time and troop strength they need to succeed is increasingly dismissed as politically nonviable because of that. In case you’ve been living in a spider hole, I’m referring to John McCain.
    Mind you, pretty much all of the serious Republican candidates say we’ve got to win, we can’t back down, etc. But they have the luxury of engaging the issue no more deeply than the usual Republican national security swagger. Sen. McCain has the problem of being specifically identified with what it will take to succeed, and what not backing down truly means, so all the “smart” analysts say he’s in trouble. And in politics, when they say you’re in trouble, you’re in trouble.
    That’s the big difference between what the military does and what politicians do — the military deals with ultimate reality: Apply force here, don’t apply it there, and here are the results. It’s an elemental equation — kill or be killed; win or lose. There’s no denying such reality. Only on the playground does “Bang! You’re dead!”/“No, I’m not!” work.
    In politics, from the now-smokeless back rooms to the woman on the street, what is said becomes reality, because if the public has no appetite, the military isn’t allowed that critical, real-world element of time.
    New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has written many discouraging things lately about Iraq. So I was encouraged this week to see him state again a simple truth that he had set forth often back when he was more optimistic: “Some things are true even if George Bush believes them.” And in this case, “it is still in our national interest to try to create a model of decent, progressive, pluralistic politics in the heart of the Arab world.”
    The very mess that we have looked upon in Baghdad and the surrounding country is our preview of what real failure will look like. Only two things will turn that “mess” into success — time and troop strength.
    But the only way our troops will receive those two elements — as essential to victory as bullets and training — is if America works up the appetite before September. That’s a huge if, but it’s the only hope we, and Iraq, have.

Bushwva

One ping only, Vasily…

9 Replies

"Dirty, rotten commies!," one of my colleagues has been muttering since yesterday. "The only thing worse than a commie is one with oil!" He refers to this news:

   CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Venezuela is studying buying Russian submarines that would transform the South American country into the top naval force in the region, a military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.
   Gen. Alberto Muller, responding to a Russian newspaper report that Chavez plans to sign a deal for five diesel submarines, said the government is "analyzing the possibilities" but that the money has not yet been set aside.
   Oil-rich Venezuela has already purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and other weapons.

But he misses the silver lining: Now we can crank out those nifty new Seawolf-class attack subs. We’ve got the excuse now! We’ve got Russian boats to track and kill again! Right here in River City! "Top naval force in the region?" In our hemisphere? Shades of the missiles of October…

Just let those peace-dividenders stop us now! They can take their little Virginia-class toys and shove them where … but I must restrain myself. We readers of too many Tom Clancy novels must be magnanimous in our triumph.

I wonder if we can get Bart Mancuso and Jonesy to come out of retirement for this?

Sunni-al-Qaida rift gets more interesting

11 Replies

You had probably heard about the increasing tension between Sunnis and foreign terrorists, but this piece that just moved is one of the more interesting, and promising, developments I’ve heard about lately:

Sunnis Revolt Against al-Qaida in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) – U.S. troops battled al-Qaida in west Baghdad on Thursday after Sunni Arab residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.

Backed by helicopter gunships, U.S. troops joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district.

The fight reflects a trend that U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.

Three more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in combat, raising the number of American deaths to at least 122 for May, making it the third deadliest month for Americans in the conflict. The military said two soldiers died Wednesday from a roadside bomb in Baghdad and one died of wounds inflicted by a bomb attack northwest of the capital Tuesday.

Lt. Col. Dale C. Kuehl, commander of 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, who is responsible for the Amariyah area of the capital, confirmed the U.S. military’s role in the fighting in the Sunni district. He said the battles raged Wednesday and Thursday but died off at night.

Although al-Qaida is a Sunni organization opposed to the Shiite Muslim-dominated government, its ruthlessness and reliance on foreign fighters have alienated many Sunnis in Iraq.

The U.S. military congratulated Amariyah residents for standing up to al-Qaida.

"The events of the past two days are promising developments. Sunni citizens of Amariyah that have been previously terrorized by al-Qaida are now resisting and want them gone. They’re tired of the intimidation that included the murder of women," Kuehl said.

A U.S. military officer, who agreed to discuss the fight only if not quoted by name because the information was not for release, said the Army was checking reports of a big al-Qaida enclave in Amariyah housing foreign fighters, including Afghans, doing temporary duty in Iraq.

U.S.-funded Alhurra television reported that non-Iraqi Arabs and Afghans were among the fighters over the past two days. Kuehl said he could not confirm those reports.