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| Iraq |
| Military Strykers Bring Initial Safety to Baghdad |
| 2006-08-23 |
| Military Stryker vehicles saturating Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods have been credited with what Iraqi authorities say is a 30 percent drop in violence in the city since the deployment of 5,000 additional U.S. troops to the region. While U.S. figures show a 22 percent drop in violence, either way, its good news for the troops. "It's been great. We get a lot of smiles and waves," said Lt. Patrick Paterson of the 114th Cavalry. One of the most dramatic changes has occurred in the Dora neighborhood. In July up to 20 people were killed in the area every day. As part of this new military effort, U.S. and Iraqi troops have been searching thousands of buildings in an effort to stop car bombs. "We established entry control points where we inspect, even now, every single vehicle [moving] in and out," said Col. Michael Beech, the commander of the 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. And there are signs it's working. During 14 days of patrols in Dora, there has been just one killing. Similar success has occurred on Mechanic Street in southern Baghdad, generally considered among the most dangerous routes in the city. Now American troops patrol the region and people increasingly feel it is safe to frequent the street's businesses. "I am happy because we are safe. Â… The stores are open, and we can move around freely," said Majid al-Asawa in Arabic. The added U.S. troops were brought in after a military operation earlier this summer flooded Baghdad with Iraqi forces, only to find the violence worsened. U.S. commanders say the additional American firepower can be only a temporary solution. "It has to be the Iraq people with the Iraqi security forces that ultimately bring success and security to Baghdad," Beech said. Final editorializing paragraph deleted. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #11 Good catch, pacific_waters. :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-08-23 21:43 |
| #10 Basically flooding a high crime area with patrol cars, armored, but patrol cars none the less. Which tells you something. The so called "insurgents" are nothing more than common criminals with a lot of guns. |
| Posted by: pacific_waters 2006-08-23 21:04 |
| #9 Well sure their way (the asshats) hasn't worked! But you know, it's because the right people haven't been in charge. If we just put the right people in charge, and do extra more of what doesn't work, it will work sooner or later. Right? /sarcasm |
| Posted by: Texas Redneck 2006-08-23 14:49 |
| #8 Agree with you Verlaine. The added benefit of the approach you describe is that the bad guys begin to know that they are beaten while reducing the population of frisky ones. |
| Posted by: SR-71 2006-08-23 11:15 |
| #7 They won't Verlaine. The civies and REMFs are convinced that complex negotiation and appeasement work every time. Kill the damn bad guys and you don't have to worry about negotiation. How fucking hard is this concept to grasp? Next time I hear someone saying we need to negotiate with terrorists I'm gonna "negotiate" with their head and baseball bat. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-08-23 10:55 |
| #6 (playing my broken record, again) Well, duh. Turns out that establishing perimeter control and aggressively seeking out bad guys and their stuff and maintaining presence produces dramatic results. Of course it does. I well understand the knife-edge trickiness of calibrating our role so as to achieve interim objectives (elections, constitution) while not inhibiting development of Iraqi capacity. But I think we've made seriously bad calls on that tricky issue for some time. A few weeks back the JCS Chmn, while on a visit up north, explicitly addressed the question, and said a more forward US role would be "too costly". Wrong. Excessive focus on compelling the Iraqis to start growing up ignored the peculiar US domestic political situation WRT this war, and also underestimated the importance of establishing basic order in Baghdad and other urban areas and cutting the Sunni problem down to more manageable dimensions. This is not hindsight. These same thoughts were being expressed by others way back to late 2003, and I've heard them from military and civilian types here since I arrived early last year. Less strategy, less finesse, fewer fine calculations and a whole lot more killin' and ass-kickin' in specific places and times are the "lessons" of the past 2 years. Yet I see no evidence the military or civilian leadership will internalize a bit of it. |
| Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2006-08-23 10:06 |
| #5 114th Cavalry The *what*? Do they mean the 1-14th Infantry, which is a battalion of the 2nd Stryker Brigade? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2006-08-23 08:45 |
| #4 I think that was a wake up call for Iraqi's. The army said fine you don't want us around see ya then the Iraq people started killing each, boy oh boy the US army not so bad now. :) |
| Posted by: djohn66 2006-08-23 08:34 |
| #3 But hope has often gone sour in Iraq. If the country's political leaders cannot make their own peace, America's latest success in Baghdad could quickly reverse. That's the "Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud©" syndrome. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-08-23 05:56 |
| #2 Two years ago these smiling Iraqis would have been bitching about "occupiers" and helping the insurgents. There's nothing like a taste of civil war to change perceptions. |
| Posted by: Apostate 2006-08-23 03:19 |
| #1 Incredible strykers rule again. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-08-23 00:20 |