Fulfilling our Promise of Iraqi Democracy

Fire of Liberty

Though the Iraqi people have seen and suffered the horrific nature of Zaqawi's minions of foreign terrorists in the past days, they have also seen several signs of progress within their streets. According to this article in the Financial Times, the Iraqi military, border guards and counter-terror forces are set to assume command of the southern Iraqi cities of Karbala, Samawa and Nisiriyah before the end of the year. This announcement along with the most recent transfer of the holy city of Najaf from coalition forces to the Iraqi forces demonstrates that President Bush's policy of Iraqifying the nation(returning Iraq to Iraq) is actually working. If you just look at his most recent statements on Iraq, the President has noted that we are in Iraq aiding and training the Iraqi forces so they can eventually take over their own nation and secure the blessings of liberty from the terrorists who seek to wrap the nation in a black cloaks of death. It's really great to see these gallant Iraqi security forces coming online and allowing the coalition forces to return the Iraqi cities to the Iraqi people. I find the following paragraphs from the article as a testament of how the process initiated by the US led coalition forces is proving to be a great success:

The three other southern cities that will be handed over later this year are in regions under British or Polish command. Mr al-Rubbaie made clear that the transfers being planned depended on several conditions, including the status of Iraqi forces, the insurgency threat, the strength of local government and the economic wellbeing of the area.

In spite of reports of desertion in the ranks of Iraqi security forces, Mr al-Rubbaie said 190,000 troops - including army, border guards and counter-terrorism units - were now ready and their numbers were rising by at least 5,000 every month.

Over the past year, American and other foreign forces have become significantly less visible on the streets in many parts of Iraq.

The security transfer, however, formalises the handover of responsibility and allows for the intervention of foreign troops only at the request of Iraqi troops.

When an area is transferred to Iraqi security, said Mr al-Rubbaie, the first response to a security threat is handled by the local police.

"If they feel overwhelmed, they call on the Iraqi army and, if army troops are overwhelmed, then they call on coalition forces," he said.

We seem to be gaining great success in this process as coalition forces return within the more peaceful and stable cities in the southern half and other parts of Iraq back to the Iraqi fold but the process is far from being complete thus the need to keep the process ongoing. By providing the much needed support and training of the Iraqi forces and making it possible for them to come online bit by bit, the coalition forces can draw down their forces and move them into more dangerous zones where the Iraqi forces are busy training but could use some extra strength in softening up the terrorists. If you make it more congruent for more and more Iraqi forces to come online in these various cities you start putting an Iraqi face on the security forces and demonstrating that they are standing up for their nation and against the terrorists in their midst. Nothing breaks the spirit of terrorists like Zarqawi and his ilk than seeing the coalition forces handing these areas over to the Iraqi forces. (Could it be that the Iraqi people love freedom more than the banner of death that the terrorists - who bomb their cities - continue to wave in their faces.) So let's keep the process ongoing and continue to stand beside the Iraqi people as they march towards democracy and seek the dissolution of foreign terrorists in their streets.

To understand such a strategy and how our commanders in the field are garnering great results with it, just check out Lewis Sorley's book A Better War, Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace, US Marine's Small Wars Manual. Our soldiers in the field seem to find it useful and hopefully individuals who will fight this war from the political, military and civilian world in the near future will do so as well.