Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Must Read: Letter From Iraq
[Editor's note: The letter which follows has reached me via a number of American military officers. They tell me that it has privately circulated widely in military circles, and is generally regarded as credible by knowledgeable people. The version which appears below has had many corroborating details removed, to avoid compromising possibly sensitive military information.
The author must remain anonymous. Thus, no guarantee of its provenance can be made. Nevertheless, the argument made by The Major is compelling enough that American Thinker readers deserve to see it. Caveat lector.]
I'm a Major in the United States Military, in Iraq. The analysts and pundits, who don't see what I see on a daily basis, have no factual basis to talk about the situation - especially if they have yet to set foot in Iraq. The media filters out most events, through a sieve of their latent prejudices - personal, political, and professional.*
The US media recently buzzed with the news of an intelligence report that is very negative about the prospects for Iraq's future. CNN's website said, "[The]National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting the best case for Iraq was 'tenuous stability' and the worst case was civil war."
That report, along with the car bombings and kidnappings in Baghdad in the past couple days, were portrayed in the media as more proof of absolute chaos and the intransigence of the insurgency. From where I sit, at the Operational Headquarters in Baghdad, that just isn’t the case. The public is being misled about what is happening.
The media types who think this "National Intelligence Estimate" is the last word on the situation either don’t know, or don’t want to know the realities of the process behind it. It was delivered to the White House in July. That means that the information that was used to derive the intelligence in the immediate aftermath of the April battle for Fallujah, and other events was gathered in the Spring.
The report doesn't cover what has happened in July or August, let alone September. The naysayers will point to the recent battles in Najaf and draw parallels between that and what happened in Fallujah in April. They aren't even close.
The bad guys did us a HUGE favor by gathering together in one place and trying to make a stand. It allowed us to focus on them and defeat them. Make no mistake, Al Sadr's troops were thoroughly smashed. The estimated enemy killed in action is huge. Before the battles, the residents of the city were afraid to walk the streets. Al Sadr's enforcers would seize people and bring them to his Islamic court where sentence was passed for religious or other violations. Long before the battles, people were looking for their lost loved ones who had been taken to "court" and never seen again.
Now Najafians can and do walk their streets in safety. Commerce has returned and the city is being rebuilt. Iraqi security forces and US troops are welcomed and smiled upon. That city was liberated again. It was not like Fallujah - the bad guys lost and are in hiding or dead.
You may not have even heard about the city of Samarra. Two weeks ago, that Sunni Triangle city was a "No-go" area for US troops. But guess what? The locals got sick of living in fear from the insurgents and foreign fighters that were there and let them know they weren't welcome. They stopped hosting them in their houses and the mayor of the town brokered a deal with the US commander to return Iraqi government sovereignty to the city without a fight. The people saw what was on the horizon and decided they didn't want their city looking like Fallujah in April or Najaf in August.
Boom, boom, just like that two major "hot spots" cool down in rapid succession. Does that mean that those towns are completely pacified? No. What it does mean is that we are learning how to do this the right way. The US commander in Samarra saw an opportunity and took it - probably the biggest victory of his military career and nary a shot was fired in anger.
Stuff will still happen those cities, and you can be sure that the bad guys really want to take them back. Those achievements, more than anything else in my opinion, account for the surge in violence in recent days - especially the violence directed at Iraqis by the insurgents. Both in Najaf and Samarra ordinary people stepped out and took sides with the Iraqi government against the insurgents, and the bad guys are hopping mad.
They are trying to instill fear once again. The worst thing we could do now is pull back and let that scum back into people’s homes and lives.
So, you may hear analysts and prognosticators on CNN, ABC and the like in the next few days, talking about how bleak the situation is here in Iraq. But from where I sit, it's looking significantly better now than when I got here. The momentum is moving in our favor, and all Americans need to know that.
But the continuing defeatism is causing real harm.
-It is very demoralizing for us here in uniform to read & hear such negativity in our press.
-It is fodder for our enemies to use against us and against the vast majority of Iraqis who want their new government to succeed.
-It causes the American public to start thinking about the acceptability of "cutting our losses" and pulling out, which would be devastating for Iraq for generations to come.
-Muslim militants would claim a huge victory, causing us to have to continue to fight them elsewhere (remember, in war "Away" games are always preferable to "Home" games).
-Reports like that also cause Iraqis begin to fear that we will pull out before we finish the job, and thus they are less willing to openly support their interim government and US/Coalition activities.
We are realizing significant progress here - not propaganda progress, but real strides are being made. It's terrible to see our national morale, and support for what we're doing here, jeopardized by sensationalized stories hyped by media giants whose #1priority is advertising income ,followed closely by their political agenda. Getting the story straight falls much further down on their priority scale, as Dan Rather and CBS News have so aptly demonstrated in the last week.
---------
* If you haven't seen, or don't remember, the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets, you should watch it this weekend. Pay special attention to the character of the reporter, Mr. Beckwith. His experience is directly related to the situation here. You'll have a different perspective on Iraq after the movie is over.
The Major
[Editor's note: The letter which follows has reached me via a number of American military officers. They tell me that it has privately circulated widely in military circles, and is generally regarded as credible by knowledgeable people. The version which appears below has had many corroborating details removed, to avoid compromising possibly sensitive military information.
The author must remain anonymous. Thus, no guarantee of its provenance can be made. Nevertheless, the argument made by The Major is compelling enough that American Thinker readers deserve to see it. Caveat lector.]
I'm a Major in the United States Military, in Iraq. The analysts and pundits, who don't see what I see on a daily basis, have no factual basis to talk about the situation - especially if they have yet to set foot in Iraq. The media filters out most events, through a sieve of their latent prejudices - personal, political, and professional.*
The US media recently buzzed with the news of an intelligence report that is very negative about the prospects for Iraq's future. CNN's website said, "[The]National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting the best case for Iraq was 'tenuous stability' and the worst case was civil war."
That report, along with the car bombings and kidnappings in Baghdad in the past couple days, were portrayed in the media as more proof of absolute chaos and the intransigence of the insurgency. From where I sit, at the Operational Headquarters in Baghdad, that just isn’t the case. The public is being misled about what is happening.
The media types who think this "National Intelligence Estimate" is the last word on the situation either don’t know, or don’t want to know the realities of the process behind it. It was delivered to the White House in July. That means that the information that was used to derive the intelligence in the immediate aftermath of the April battle for Fallujah, and other events was gathered in the Spring.
The report doesn't cover what has happened in July or August, let alone September. The naysayers will point to the recent battles in Najaf and draw parallels between that and what happened in Fallujah in April. They aren't even close.
The bad guys did us a HUGE favor by gathering together in one place and trying to make a stand. It allowed us to focus on them and defeat them. Make no mistake, Al Sadr's troops were thoroughly smashed. The estimated enemy killed in action is huge. Before the battles, the residents of the city were afraid to walk the streets. Al Sadr's enforcers would seize people and bring them to his Islamic court where sentence was passed for religious or other violations. Long before the battles, people were looking for their lost loved ones who had been taken to "court" and never seen again.
Now Najafians can and do walk their streets in safety. Commerce has returned and the city is being rebuilt. Iraqi security forces and US troops are welcomed and smiled upon. That city was liberated again. It was not like Fallujah - the bad guys lost and are in hiding or dead.
You may not have even heard about the city of Samarra. Two weeks ago, that Sunni Triangle city was a "No-go" area for US troops. But guess what? The locals got sick of living in fear from the insurgents and foreign fighters that were there and let them know they weren't welcome. They stopped hosting them in their houses and the mayor of the town brokered a deal with the US commander to return Iraqi government sovereignty to the city without a fight. The people saw what was on the horizon and decided they didn't want their city looking like Fallujah in April or Najaf in August.
Boom, boom, just like that two major "hot spots" cool down in rapid succession. Does that mean that those towns are completely pacified? No. What it does mean is that we are learning how to do this the right way. The US commander in Samarra saw an opportunity and took it - probably the biggest victory of his military career and nary a shot was fired in anger.
Stuff will still happen those cities, and you can be sure that the bad guys really want to take them back. Those achievements, more than anything else in my opinion, account for the surge in violence in recent days - especially the violence directed at Iraqis by the insurgents. Both in Najaf and Samarra ordinary people stepped out and took sides with the Iraqi government against the insurgents, and the bad guys are hopping mad.
They are trying to instill fear once again. The worst thing we could do now is pull back and let that scum back into people’s homes and lives.
So, you may hear analysts and prognosticators on CNN, ABC and the like in the next few days, talking about how bleak the situation is here in Iraq. But from where I sit, it's looking significantly better now than when I got here. The momentum is moving in our favor, and all Americans need to know that.
But the continuing defeatism is causing real harm.
-It is very demoralizing for us here in uniform to read & hear such negativity in our press.
-It is fodder for our enemies to use against us and against the vast majority of Iraqis who want their new government to succeed.
-It causes the American public to start thinking about the acceptability of "cutting our losses" and pulling out, which would be devastating for Iraq for generations to come.
-Muslim militants would claim a huge victory, causing us to have to continue to fight them elsewhere (remember, in war "Away" games are always preferable to "Home" games).
-Reports like that also cause Iraqis begin to fear that we will pull out before we finish the job, and thus they are less willing to openly support their interim government and US/Coalition activities.
We are realizing significant progress here - not propaganda progress, but real strides are being made. It's terrible to see our national morale, and support for what we're doing here, jeopardized by sensationalized stories hyped by media giants whose #1priority is advertising income ,followed closely by their political agenda. Getting the story straight falls much further down on their priority scale, as Dan Rather and CBS News have so aptly demonstrated in the last week.
---------
* If you haven't seen, or don't remember, the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets, you should watch it this weekend. Pay special attention to the character of the reporter, Mr. Beckwith. His experience is directly related to the situation here. You'll have a different perspective on Iraq after the movie is over.
The Major
