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At the Tipping Point
(U.S. Army Sgt. Quenton Sallows hands out Iraqi Flags to Iraqi children beginning their first day of school in Lutafiyah, Iraq, Oct. 1, 2007.)
Gen. Ray Odierno said earlier in the week that if we can restore basic services, we may reach the tipping point in Iraq.We’re making great progress on rebuilding infrastructure: pumping stations for electricity, a $22 million telecommunications center, if you want to read the latest reconstruction report, click here.
Turns out that Big Ray is not the only one who is talking tipping point. That precise term was used today by Carter Andress, president of American-Iraqi Solutions Group and author of Contract Combatants: Tales of an Imbedded Capitalist. Mr. Andress writes today of the indispensable role of contractors like Blackwater.
Blackwater, like other military contractors in Iraq, is made up of many former soldiers including lots of special forces guys. If they weren’t working for Blackwater we’d call them heroes.
They still are. And they are helping our military and the Iraqis reach the tipping point against al Qaeda:
The tipping point has arrived, I believe, because the Iraqi Sunnis have turned en masse against al Qaeda. With al Qaeda retaliatory bombings of Abu Risha in Al Anbar, and with a reconciliation meeting between Shias and Sunnis in Baquuba, the capital of Diyala Province — a mixed region where al Qaeda has fled after being forced out of the Sunni west — there is no turning back. Al Qaeda is now at war with the very people that must provide the support necessary for the foreign-dominated radical jihadi movement to survive in Iraq. There can be no political victory for al Qaeda in Iraq now. We just have to keep the pressure on and they will continue to implode.
The war in Iraq is winding down for over two-thirds of the population. There are fewer than 15 insurgent-related incidents a day in Mosul (down from five times that amount a year ago and many of the current incidents are roadside bombs being found before detonation due to information from the local populace). The attacks in Basra are even fewer, especially now that Iran has backed off, realizing that the B-52s are a presidential phone call away. Even though it is the main insurgent target, Baghdad has seen attacks drop by half — and death-squad killings reduced by 75 percent — as the new Iraqi security services take on a more aggressive and present role. The city where I have lived now for a total of almost three years, has never been quieter. We will continue to see the occasional spectacular car bomb, but this will have no lasting effect on the general movement toward peace in Iraq.
The war in Iraq is winding down for over 2/3 of the population? I call that progress. I wonder what Chuck Hagel would call it?