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Reports of Progress in Iraq
April 11, 2007
"Nearly two months into the new security push in Baghdad, there has been some success in reducing the number of death squad victims found crumpled in the streets each day...And while the overall death rates for all of Iraq have not dropped significantly, largely because of devastating suicide bombings, a few parts of the capital have become calmer as some death squads have decided to lie low." - "Patterns of War Shift in Iraq Amid Buildup of U.S. Force," New York Times, April 9, 2007
"I can tell you I went to [a joint US-Iraqi station], to the Dora district haunted by a death squad. Al Qaeda as been very active in this area. When US and Iraqi troops came together and worked together side by side in these buildings right there smack in the middle of the market area, they -- both the Iraqi commanders and US troops said to me the Iraqis are starting to trust us. They're coming to us, they're giving us intelligence and that's what has helped us get a handle on the death squad that's operating right here in this area." - Kyra Phillips, live in Baghdad, CNN American Morning, April 9, 2007
"There are incremental advances. Our troops are more motivated. I think they've really welcomed the idea of General Petraeus being in place. The death squads at night aren't roaming and the carnage is down and the murders are down. It is what you're hearing out of Senator McCain, what I saw on the ground, that there are incremental successes and advances. It is still a long fight. It is not mission accomplished. We need to highlight the hope and we need to talk about the fact that our boys and our girls over there are having success." - Congressman Rick Renzi, MSNBC, April 6, 2007
"For the first time, U.S. and Iraqi forces have set up dozens of joint security stations throughout this city. They live at these stations and patrol together for weeks at a time. While the fight is far from over, violence is down in large parts of Baghdad. We saw the progress for ourselves." - Congressman Mike Pence, "Hope Springs in Iraq," USA Today, April 5, 2007
"Here's the perspective the press isn't providing: We are in the middle of a tough, bloody war in Iraq. Throughout 2006, the war was going very badly, especially in Baghdad. Large chunks of the city were subject to a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing, murder, and terrorism. Sunni families fled. Markets closed. Normal life ground to a halt. Those perilous trends have been stopped in the past few months and are beginning to be reversed. This is due to an increased deployment of Iraqi and American troops, and especially to the fact that Americans are no longer staying on their giant forward operating bases. They are patrolling more intensively from joint security stations and small combat outposts located in the middle of the city." - Max Boot, "McCain In Baghdad," Commentary Magazine's Contentions Blog, April 4, 2007
"Well, it is, as you note, it's still [in the] early days. We have been consistent, I think, in saying that it will be months, not days or weeks, before we see real indicators of progress. There have been some encouraging indicators in Baghdad in terms of a reduction in sectarian murders. There've been some families returning. There have certainly been revivals in marketplaces. We have actually cordoned a variety of the different markets -- these huge markets in which tens of thousands of Iraqis will shop at any given time on a given day -- and that has taken place. So those have been encouraging." - General David Petraeus, The Jim Lehrer Show, April 4, 2007
"Children have come out to play again. Shoppers are back in markets. A few devout souls even venture past the barbed wire to pray. Baghdad is still rocked by car bombs every day. But right in the center of the city, a small area of relative calm is starting to grow, thanks to stepped up U.S. patrols and increased Iraqi checkpoints. Nowhere is safe for Westerners to linger, but over the past week we visited five different neighborhoods where the locals told us life is slowly coming back to normal." - Terry McCarthy, ABC News, April 3, 2007
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