General says withdrawing troops from Iraq a very bad idea

CNN:

Maintaining security in Diyala province north of Baghdad will be impossible if U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq, according to a U.S. senior ground commander there.

"We obviously cannot maintain that if the forces are withdrawn -- and that would be a very, very bad idea, to do a significant withdrawal immediately," Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told CNN's Jamie McIntyre on CNN.com Live.

In September, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is to brief Congress on the progress of operations involving the recent increase of U.S. troops in Iraq -- a buildup the Bush administration calls a "surge." The briefing could determine how long the additional troops will stay.

Mixon's troops are working with Iraqi forces fighting entrenched al Qaeda forces in Baquba and around Diyala province in an operation dubbed "Arrowhead Ripper."

U.S. troop casualties have been high in the province, according to U.S. commanders, because insurgent forces are using the area as a base and have booby-trapped it with "deeply buried" roadside bombs that have killed entire Humvee crews.

Diyala became the home base for many al Qaeda forces when U.S. troops clamped down on Baghdad in February with increased troop levels, the military says.

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"I only had enough forces initially when I arrived here last September to clear Baquba. I did that many times, but I was unable to hold it and secure it," Mixon said.

"Now I have enough force to go in, establish permanent compound outposts throughout the city that will be manned by coalition forces, Iraqi army, and Iraqi police, and maintain a permanent presence.

"But all of this has been made possible with the additional forces that have been given to me as a result of the surge," Mixon said.

While U.S. and Iraqi forces appear to have the upper hand in Diyala, Mixon said there is still some question about the Iraqi government's commitment.

"The problem is one of support that [Iraqi forces] receive from their Ministry of Defense and their other higher headquarters -- particularly in logistics. We have got to increase their numbers, we've got to get better logistic support from their headquarters so they can sustain the fight," Mixon said.

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He is clearly right and the voices in Washington sounding retreat are making no rational military sense. In fact they are talking the opposite of rational military sense. Perhaps the Republicans who are sounding like Democrats and ignoring the progress being made by the surge are doing so to put more political pressure on the Iraqis to move the political side of the equation to what is needed in the perception of Washington.

I just do not think they are as ignorant as they sound when they suggest that the surge has not worked, when the evidence is pretty clear that it is working and will work if given time. If they want to join the Democrats in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory shame on them.

Most of the impatience in the country over the war is based on ignorance of military operations needed to defeat an insurgency and the time that is needed for such operations. The military and the administration have done a poor job of explaining this to a public that is woefully uninformed by the media on this issue.

Too many in the media never wanted to undertake the operation so they have been looking for excuses for failure from day one. Hirsch over Newsweak is one of the worst. He may set the worlds record for uninformed commentary on military matters.