WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- Growing numbers of people think the U.S. is making progress in Iraq and will eventually be able to claim some success there, a poll showed Tuesday in a sign the politics of the war could become more complicated for Democrats.

With diminishing U.S. and Iraqi casualties and the start of modest troop withdrawals, the public's mood seems to have brightened a bit, the Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed. That is a rarity in what has been a relentlessly unpopular war.

"I still have hopes the people in Iraq will appreciate us being there," said Daniel Laird, 30, a firefighter from Yuba City, Calif., who leans Republican and was questioned in the survey. "It just seems like we are making a difference."
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I think they mean we almost have the oil.

I think they mean we almost have the oil.

© AP | 2008-01-18 16:36:06 -

NAJAf, Iraq (AP) - Radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr put the United States and the Iraqi government on notice Friday that he may not extend a six-month cease-fire by his militia.

The cease-fire by the Mahdi Army militia, due to expire next month, has been cited by U.S. commanders in Iraq as a major contributor.
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Caroline Willis | Issue date: 1/14/08 Section: Opinion

They are called CLCs: Concerned Local Citizens. Most of them are Sunni militants. All of them are getting paid $10 a day by the U.S. military to point their guns the other way.
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Concerned Local Citizens is the military euphemism for individuals who are paid by the military to not cause trouble. Whole groups of insurgents, including fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq, are converted to temporary allies through this program, and it dates from June 2007, just when the violence was starting to ease.
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But how long can it last? Relationships based on bribery can be tenuous; but it can also be a short philosophical step from bribery to employment. I don't know enough about the cultural mindset on bribery among the Iraqi peoples to say.

It could simply be that our military gave exhausted insurgents a chance to rest and recoup on our dime, and in another month or so the fighting will flare up again. It is certain that the men being paid are no friendlier to the U.S. presence in Iraq than they ever were. But six months is a long time; long enough, perhaps, to develop a lifestyle and to get used to watching more often than shooting.
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... that a surge of 30,000 additional troops into a country of 30 million could never have enough of an impact alone to turn things around.

McCaffrey just got back from a five-day trip to Iraq where, he says, he "went to a couple of these CLCs, you know, five awkward-looking guys with their own AKs standing at a road junction with two magazines of ammunition — and they're there as early warning to protect their families in that village. I think that that's good."

It's a controversial strategy, and Macgregor warns that it's creating a parallel military force in Iraq that is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims.

"We need to understand that buying off your enemy is a good short-term solution to gain a respite from violence," he says, "but it's not a long-term solution to creating a legitimate political order inside a country that, quite frankly, is recovering from the worst sort of civil war."

That civil war has subsided, for now. It's diminished because of massive, internal migration, a movement of populations that has created de-facto ethnic cantons.

"Segregation works is effectively what the U.S. military is telling you," Macgregor says. "We have facilitated, whether on purpose or inadvertently, the division of the country. We are capitalizing on that now, and we are creating new militias out of Sunni insurgents. We're calling them concerned citizens and guardians. These people are not our friends, they do not like us, they do not want us in the country. Their goal is unchanged."

Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran and a former administration adviser, articulates a view that is privately shared by several former and current officers. It's not that they believe the plan isn't working. It's that they see it as a dangerous one with potentially destructive consequences.

Posted: 01/23 | From: Mathaba

The reported huge drop in violence in Basra is due largely to the withdrawal of British troops from the southern Iraqi city, Defense Secretary Des Browne has admitted.

"It is due substantially to the fact that about 80 per cent of violence in Basra was directed at our troops when they were based there," Browne said during defence questions in parliament on Monday.

The Defense Secretary was asked to account for the 90 per cent reduction in violence in the city quoted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week.
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NEW YORK, Sept. 17, 2007

(CBS) Most Americans continue to want troops to start coming home from Iraq, and most say the plan President Bush announced last week for troop reductions doesn't go far enough, according to a CBS News poll released Monday.

While the president spoke of a long-term commitment to Iraq in his nationally televised address, a time frame longer than two years is not acceptable to most Americans. Still, most of those polled expect large numbers of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for many years to come.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans say that U.S. troop levels in Iraq should either be reduced or that all troops should be removed - similar numbers to those before Mr. Bush's speech.
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