Just this week, I had a friend email a "news" story stating that the mountains of captured documents in Iraq showed that there were no links between Sadaam and al Qaeda. Huh? Saddam's Terror Links The Wall Street Journal March 24, 2008 Five years on, few Iraq myths are as persistent as the notion that the Bush Administration invented a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Yet a new Pentagon report suggests that Iraq's links to world-wide terror networks, including al Qaeda, were far more extensive than previously understood. Naturally, it's getting little or no attention. Press accounts have been misleading or outright distortions, while the Bush Administration seems indifferent. Even John McCain has let the study's revelations float by. But that doesn't make the facts any less notable or true. The redacted version of "Saddam and Terrorism" is the most definitive public assessment to date from the Harmony program, the trove of "exploitable" documents, audio and video records, and computer files captured in Iraq. On the basis of about 600,000 items, the report lays out Saddam's willingness to use terrorism against American and other international targets, as well as his larger state sponsorship of terror, which included harboring, training and equipping jihadis throughout the Middle East. "The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the region gave Saddam the opportunity to make terrorism, one of the few tools remaining in Saddam's 'coercion' toolbox, not only cost effective but a formal instrument of state power," the authors conclude. Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) cooperated with Hamas; the Palestine Liberation Front, which maintained a Baghdad office; Force 17, Yasser Arafat's private army; and others. The IIS gave commando training for members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the organization that assassinated Anwar Sadat and whose "emir" was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Osama bin Laden's second-in-command when the group merged with al Qaeda in 1998. At the very least the report should dispel the notion that outwardly "secular" Saddam would never consort with religious types like al Qaeda. A pan-Arab nationalist, Saddam viewed radical Islamists as potential allies, and they likewise. According to a 1993 memo, Saddam decided to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia," where al Qaeda was then working with warlords against U.S. humanitarian forces. Saddam also trained Sudanese fighters in Iraq.

What a remarkable 5 years. God bless the men and women of the American military who gave the ultimate sacrifice to set a people free. Greater love hath no man than this . . . . From the Wall Street Journal: America and Iraq The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board March 20, 2008 Five years after U.S. and coalition forces began rolling into Iraq on their way to Baghdad, it's easy to lament the war's mistakes. The Bush Administration underestimated the war's cost -- in treasure, and most painfully in lives. The CIA and every other Western intelligence agency was wrong about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. failed to anticipate the insurgency and was almost fatally late in implementing a counterinsurgency. ...

From Gateway Pundit: The US military lost more soldiers in the first 5 years of the Clinton Presidency than the US military lost in the first 5 years in Iraq. (Source: CRS Report for Congress.)

From Gateway Pundit: Sizing Up Sacrifice Iraq War (5 years)-- 3,990 Batan Death March (one week)-- 10,000 Battle of Guadalcanal (186 days)-- 7,099 Battle of Guam (20 Days)-- 3,000 Operation Market Garden (9 days)-- 3,664 Battle of the Bulge (41 days)-- 19,276 Battle of Iwo Jima (39 days)-- 6,821 Battle of Pusan Perimeter (61 days-Korea)-- 6,706

On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, the media has been buzzing about how Iraq has faded as a headline. "The American people are tired of hearing about it." "There's nothing new to say." Blah. Blah. Blah. The fact is that since things have turned around, the mainstream media has lost interest because it would mean saying that the Leader of the Free World did something right with The Surge. Iraq is still front and center for someone: al Qaeda. Realism In Iraq By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008 4:20 PM PT War On Terror: As John McCain and Dick Cheney observe progress of the surge in person, new revelations show how important Iraq is to al-Qaida. Electing a Democrat president would squander our gains. Top Democrats are so committed to the position that liberating Iraq will go down as a monumental blunder that the most powerful tsunami of facts will not change their minds. Meeting this week with top Iraqi politicians as well as with Gen. David Petraeus, Sen. McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, provided a strong dose of realism about our forces' future there. "We could have a presence here for many years," McCain told ABC News on Monday. "We've been in Germany for 60 years. But the point is, if we can reduce and eliminate American casualties, then Americans will be satisfied with an American presence here." Cheney, who traveled separately from McCain, said at a press conference with Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, "We've come a long way in five years, and it's been well worth the effort." The vice president also warned against a premature pullout as planned by Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. McCain and Cheney both delivered the heartening but challenging news about Iraq: Contrary to the expectations of all the supposed experts, U.S. forces engineered what Cheney called a "remarkable turnaround." And as McCain let it be known, we may have to stay a long time — but in the stable and truly free Iraq that is within our grasp and that would mean few if any U.S. casualties. Amid this straight talk on Iraq comes news of just how important the country has been all along in the eyes of al-Qaida.

A new ABC News poll finds a surge in optimism in Iraq: Improved security and economic conditions have reversed Iraqis’ spiral of despair, sharply improving hopes for the country’s future. Yet deep problems remain, in terms of security, living conditions, reconciliation and political progress alike. Fifty-five percent of Iraqis say things in their own lives are going well, well up from 39 percent as recently as August. More, 62 percent, rate local security positively, up 19 points. And the number who expect conditions nationally to improve in the year ahead has doubled, to 46 percent in this new national poll by ABC News . . . . As good as this is, the poll ...

From his post in Baghdad, recent Johns Hopkins graduate in strategic studies and international economics, Staff Sergeant Anthony Diaz says that there is one inescapable conclusion: "The surge has worked." Hard-Won Progress In Baghdad By Anthony J. Diaz Saturday, March 15, 2008; Page A13 BAGHDAD -- Since I arrived here last August, I have been struck by four things: the financial commitment we have made to reconstruction; the precipitous decline in violence; the inklings of representative government; and the small yet significant progress in communal relations between the mostly Shiite Iraqi army and the predominantly Sunni residents of this area. One often reads of the chaos plaguing Iraq. Yet the media accounts only infrequently seem to grasp the successes being achieved. My combat outpost sits along the Tigris River in a section of Baghdad known as Adhamiyah.

A great piece by Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard on the mammoth report from the Institute for Defense Analyses showing the myriad contacts between Sadaam and al Qaeda: This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives." According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was ...

The Wall Street Journal notes today that "sentiment" on Iraq is changing. Funny how facts change sentiments: Sentiment on Iraq Is Changing By JOHN D. MCKINNON March 5, 2008; Page A13 WASHINGTON -- The perception that the U.S. troop surge in Iraq has succeeded is changing some public views of the war, potentially blunting Democrats' political edge on the issue. Americans continue to judge the nearly five-year-old U.S. invasion of Iraq as a mistake, by margins that have barely budged. But in a notable shift, public perceptions of the current U.S. military effort there "have become significantly more positive over the past several months," says a recent report from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It shows that almost half of Americans think the war effort is going well, and that the U.S. should keep its troops there, at least for the time being. Other polls echo the trend to varying degrees. The results suggest that -- barring another reversal in conditions -- Democrats' ability to use the war as a political weapon could be somewhat curtailed, particularly when the general-election campaign begins. In part because of the shift in sentiment on the war, Democrats have turned more frequently to other issues -- particularly the weakening economy. That has been true both on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill. The recent change in public opinion appears pronounced among independent voters, and independents who see progress in Iraq are much more likely to support Republican John McCain, at least so far. In the short run, the change also could be helping Hillary Clinton

From Fox News via Amy Proctor, the story of Marine Gunnery Sergeant Spanky Gibson, an amputee who has returned to Iraq because: "This is where we were 232 years ago as a nation. Now they’re (Iraq) starting a new nation. I’m back here to help in any way I can." God bless and protect Gunnery Sgt. Gibson.