Describing the change in Anbar

The News Hour interviews Bing West and David Wood about their recent reporting from Anbar province. It is too long to summarize but briefly...

RAY SUAREZ: Well, General Odierno said yesterday 12,000 Anbar residents have joined the Iraqi security forces in the first five months of this year compared with 1,000 in all of 2006. Bing West, what caused this change? Why this shift to cooperating with the Americans instead of trying to kick them out?

BING WEST: Al-Qaida basically is a religious-based cult, and they had killed too many members of the Sunni tribes. And finally, the Sunni tribes listened to the Marines, because the Marines for several years have been saying, "Smarten up. One day, we're gone, and al-Qaida is going to be in charge if you don't stand up for yourselves." And finally the message kicked in.

But we have to be careful here. Al-Qaida is still absolutely ruthless. And I think, in a straight up fight, they take the tribes. The steel rods in this concrete are still those Marine rifle companies, and so the challenge is, how do you bring in these tribal members, and cause them to work with the Iraqi army, and then extract the Americans? And that's a delicate process.

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West goes on to describe the need to get the State Department involved in the political aspects of the new Anbar. Another quick clip...

DAVID WOOD: Sure, yes, Ray, I don't know, is the short answer. I think the Iraqis think there is. The organization of Iraqi sheikhs in al-Anbar province that you referred to, these roughly 200 sheikhs who decided to throw their lot in with the United States, they've changed the name of their organization. It used to be called the Awakening in Anbar. Now it's called the Awakening in Iraq, and they're exporting this idea to other provinces, and beginning to build political organizations that can help local people and Sunnis, in this case, sort of take hold of their own communities. I think it's an encouraging sign.

There is much more. West has been one of the first to report on the changes in Anbar and both mentioned how much the changes have effected their ability to report in the area without having to be in a armor plated convoy. Hat tip to Small Wars Journal.