Iraq: The Scorecard

Retired Army General and decorated Vietnam War veteran Barry McCaffrey (now teaching at West Point) has just returned from Iraq with the following observations:

McCaffrey—who in March 2007 characterized the US mission there as being in "strategic peril"—says in an "after action report" (.pdf) to his colleagues at West Point that the US military is "now clearly in the end game in Iraq to successfully achieve what should be our principle objectives." Among these, he includes withdrawing US troops within 36 months and leaving behind an Iraq that has a functioning civil state and security force that is not engaged in war, either with itself or any of the country's six neighboring states.

"The bottom line," McCaffrey writes, "is a dramatic and growing momentum for economic and security stability which is unlikely to be reversible. I would not characterize the situation as fragile. It is just beyond the tipping point."

He goes on to list a number of recent successes, click the link to read it all....

But let's take a look at who was right about the surge, and the possibilty of success in Iraq:
George W. Bush
General David Petraeus
John McCain
Robert Gates
The majority of the Republican Congressional delegation

And they were all villified as "ignorant warmongers" for it by the media and by the Democrats.

So who was wrong about the surge? A short list, as we can't be here all day:
Barack Obama
Joe Biden
Hillary Clinton (possibly the worst of the lot)
Harry Reid
Nancy Pelosi
The majority of the Democratic Congressional delegation
The entirety of the news media

And guess who is about to be in charge of our nation, and its miltary, and its foreign policy apparatus? That's right, the same folks who were 100% wrong about the biggest military decision that had to be made since WWII. And most of them either refuse to refute their earlier position - despite the reality of the Iraqi success story - or refuse to apologize for the ugly remarks they made about the strategy (or the persons involved in its planning/implementation) that took America from the jaws of defeat to an almost-certain victory in Iraq.

Don't you feel better now about your new leadership, and the change they will bring?

And while you are mulling that lovely thought over, go read Pejman, as he takes on of those aforementioned media fools here.