Those are Pres. Bush's words, and this latest progress from Iraq must have reid & murtha crying in their collective piss water. Bumped & updated. Yes, we can!
More than 4,000 military transition teams work with Iraqi army units from the company level on up, teaching combat tactics, operational planning and logistics to lead to a sustainable Iraqi combat force capable of planning and conducting operations in the long term.Update: Yes, we can!
The Iraqi military is setting up a national operations center in Mosul. U.S. combat forces in Mosul act in a supporting role for 2nd Division troops when asked, typically supplying vehicles for raids. The operations center is being established as part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's declaration of a "decisive" battle against al Qaeda in Mosul.
"I don't think they get the credit for what they've done over the past 24 months," Col. Brown said of the 2nd Division. "This isn't Baghdad, and they didn't have the large U.S. presence the capital did. But they stood up and did what they had to do.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force - Iraq, spoke with reporters accompanying Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is visiting the country.Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker will give a full report to the president and Congress in April.
The security trend lines all are favorable, the general said. “Attacks have continued to go down. We’ve had a five-month period consistently of a level of attacks we’ve not seen since spring of 2005,” he said. “This past week was the fourth-lowest since October 2004.”
The general said he will lay out his recommendations “for the process by which we’ll go about assessing conditions in the wake of the drawdown of the surge brigade combat teams.” The drawdown of the original surge forces is set to end in July. He said he will explain the factors he will consider in making recommendations on subsequent withdrawals.
Reid & murtha are inconsolable.
TY to HA!
