US sees momentum shift in Iraq

Rowan Scarborough:

In the privacy of their E-ring offices, senior Pentagon officials have begun to entertain thoughts that were unimaginable a year ago: Iraq is turning the corner.
Military officials and analysts say the clearing out of enemy-infested Fallujah in November, the Jan. 30 elections and the increasing willingness of Iraqis to fight and die for a democratic country are contributing to the momentum.
"This is still a tough fight. We don't want anyone to think that it is not," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a military analyst who strongly supports Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "But the momentum is in our direction."
A military officer said big problems remain. Sunnis remain reluctant to join the Iraqi security forces. The Marines need more armored vehicles to fight in the Al Anbar province, one of the deadliest sectors. And the Baghdad command inside the green zone has been spotty on providing actionable intelligence.
A military source in Iraq declined to give raw number of attacks, but said, "There has been a decided downward trend in the number and lethality of attacks since the January 30 elections."
A Pentagon official said the more that intelligence agencies analyze the insurgency, the clearer it becomes that a large part is criminal, not nationalistic.
Of course, a large part of the former regime was criminal.

Light blogging during the day

I will be in meetings most of the day.

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