Iraq security "remarkably better"

Rowan Scarborough:

The nation's top military officer Wednesday declared the security situation in Iraq "remarkably better," so good in fact that he expects to recommend more U.S. troop reductions this fall if conditions hold.

Just back from a tour of two war fronts - Iraq and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region - Adm. Michael G. Mullen said he expected to witness improvements in Baghdad and across Iraq, but was surprised by how well a 17-month-old U.S. troop surge has worked.

"I won't go so far as to say that progress in Iraq, from a military perspective, has reached a tipping point or it is irreversible," Adm. Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said at a press conference with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. "But security is unquestionably and remarkably better."

The last of five reinforcement combat brigades have left Iraq, leaving behind 15 such units. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, a key architect of the February 2007 surge and recently confirmed by the Senate to lead U.S. Central Command, has called for several months of assessment before deciding whether to reduce troop levels below about 145,000.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a positive review of the security situation in Iraq on Wednesday, but were less optimistic in their assessment of Afghanistan. (Getty Images)

But Adm. Mullen's statement that "I expect to be able early in the fall to recommend to the secretary and to the president further troop reductions" is a clear signal that top commanders in Iraq think a continued drawdown is warranted.

The two most important questions in the equation are: Can the Iraqi Security Forces inherit and win the fight, and is the insurgency nearly defeated?

Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that his country had defeated al Qaeda in Iraq, the Osama bin Laden terrorist franchise that at one time controlled much of Anbar province west of Baghdad and sent suicide bombers to the capital at will.

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They are concerned about the fight in Afghanistan. I think clearly the enemy has given up on Iraq and is switching its focus to Afghanistan and protecting its base in Pakistan. We are approaching the point if Afghanistan where we would have been had the enemy not been distracted by the war in Iraq which al Qaeda attempted to make its central front. It so alienated even the Sunnis in Iraq that they lost the support of the people at a time when the US was getting stronger in Iraq.

The Democrats totally blew it on Iraq and they should play a political price for that. They don't really understand the Afghan conflict either. It comes from their basic ignorance of warfare and their predisposition to believe insurgencies are not winnable, when it fact insurgents lose 90 percent of the time.