Subject: Friday 17 September 2004
Al-Nasar Complex (FKA Camp Victory), Iraq

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO AS MANY PEOPLE YOU KNOW WHO WILL APPRECIATE IT AND
PASS IT ON TO OTHERS. THIS NEWS NEEDS TO GET OUT...

A thought from Iraq - "Doom & Gloom about Iraq's future..I don't see it from
where I'm sitting."

[For those of you who haven't gotten my "Thoughts" before, I'm a Major in
the USMC on the Multi-National Corps staff in Baghdad. The analysts and
pundits who don't see what I see on a daily basis, in my opinion, have very
little credibility to talk about the situation - especially if they have yet
to set foot in Iraq. Everything Americans believe about Iraq is simply
perception filtered through one's latent prejudices until you are
face-to-face with reality. 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.]

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The US media is abuzz today with the news of an intelligence report that is
very negative about the prospects for Iraq's future. CNN's website says,
"[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 are being
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. Let's lay out some background, first about the "National
Intelligence Estimate." The most glaring issue with its relevance is the
fact that it was delivered to the White House in July. That means that the
information that was used to derive the intelligence was gathered in the
Spring - in the immediate aftermath of the April battle for Fallujah, and
other events. 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.
Things will still happen in 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, so please, please, pass this on to those who care and will pass it on
to others.

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, and 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 to begin to fear that we will pull out
before we finish the job, and thus be 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 #1 priority 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.

© copyright 2004 WJ Truax

The views are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of the US military or the US Marine Corps. or this website.
 
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