More signs of progress in Iraq
James Forsyth 1:10pm
Obviously, the vote in the Turkish Parliament yesterday authorising incursions into northern Iraq to combat Kurdish terrorists threatens to undercut much of the progress that has been made in Iraq recently. But the security success of the surge in recent months has been quite remarkable as this sniper from Joe Klein’s Today in Iraq slot for Time magazine demonstrates. “Tonight, ABC news reported that there were no--zero--violent incidents in Baghdad today. But I can't find that fairly amazing story anywhere on the ABC website, or on Iraqslogger. So maybe it didn't happen. But if it did...”
In a way, the issue isn’t whether there were no attacks at all in Baghdad yesterday but the mere fact that this even seems plausible to a close Iraq watcher like Klein. Obviously, one day without violence doesn’t mean that the war is over but it is an encouraging sign that all is not lost yet. The question now is whether the relative calm in Baghdad can help spur desperately needed progress on political reconciliation.
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TGF UKIP
October 18th, 2007 7:26pmBang on James, and over here the success the US has been having over the past few months has been almost completely unreported especially by the BBC which routinely refers to "the so called surge." One aspect of the surge's success if it continues, will be that it will enable the US Army to transfer its attention to clearing up the mess left by the British in Basra. Now I wonder how that will get reported by our "impartial" national broadcaster.