An inconvenient truth for Anti-War Lobby :: The Australian

IN April, US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the war in Iraq lost, saying the the extreme violence in the country proved the surge was accomplishing nothing. This week Senator Reid is still engaged in the vain attempt to block funding for the war in the US Senate, refusing to acknowledge the extraordinary success of the surge.

Against all the defeatist expectations of the so-called "anti-war" lobby, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this week reported that terrorist attacks, including car bombings, in Baghdad had dropped by 77 per cent since last year's peak. The dramatic improvement is directly attributed to the surge of 30,000 US troops, their effective counter-insurgency strategy and to the fact that locals are fed up with al-Qa'ida and other extremists. The good news is not just limited to Baghdad. Anbar, once an al-Qa'ida stronghold, is relatively peaceful thanks to the joint efforts of Sunni sheiks and marines. In the south, those willing Iraq to defeat were gloomily predicting that the withdrawal of British troops from Basra would lead to a brutal domination of the city by Iranian-backed terrorists. That hasn't happened.

An inconvenient truth for Anti-War Lobby ...

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