The Redhunter

The Post reporter even spoke with a member of AQI. It's interesting stuff, but 65 years ago would they have met with an SS trooper? Not if they wanted to avoid FDR's wrath they wouldn't have.

"We made many mistakes over the past year," including the imposition of a strict interpretation of Islamic law, he told a Washington Post special correspondent. Al-Qaeda in Iraq followers broke the fingers of men who smoked, whipped those who imbibed alcohol and banned shops from selling shampoo bottles that displayed images of women -- actions that turned Sunnis against the group.

Ogaidi(the AQI terrorist) said the total number of al-Qaeda in Iraq members across the country has plummeted from about 12,000 in June 2007 to about 3,500 today.

But remember Clausewitz' dictum that the enemy is "an animate object that reacts."

The insurgent group is now reaching out to disaffected Sunni tribal leaders in a bid to win back their support, even as it attacks Sunnis working closely with the Americans, according to Abdullah Hussein Lehebi, an emir from the Amiriyah section of Anbar south of Fallujah. "In exchange, we would not target them again and would respect the authority of the tribal leaders," he said in an interview with a Post special correspondent at a date orchard near the Euphrates River in Amiriyah.

Lehebi, 47, whose nom de guerre is Abu Khalid al-Dulaimi, said the group's main focus now was to attack bridges, oil pipelines and telephone towers, as well as U.S. troops and their Sunni allies.

Further, we shouldn't be under any illusions that AQI has ceased to be able to intimidate people into submission. An AP story in today's Washington Times makes it clear that such tactics are alive and will in the dangerous Diyala Province up north (MG Hertling's AOR):

Fear is more than a four-letter concept in Iraq's Diyala pro-vince. It's real. It's constant. It's all-pervasive, and for years, while the area was under the thumb of al Qaeda, it was a matter of life and death.

It still is all of the above.

The number of active al Qaeda terrorists in the province north of Baghdad is thought to be less than a hundred following Operation Raider Harvest.

Yet the fear remains palpable.

The center of gravity in an insurgency is the population, not the enemy. In order to succeed we must secure the population, the objective of which is to get them off of the fence and into our camp.

And many Iraqis are helping us out. Rich Lowry, just back from Iraq, tells the story of a very brave little girl:

Gen. Mark Hertling, who commands American forces in the north, recalls being introduced in the village of Himbus to a 12-year-old girl who had pointed out where the al-Qaeda thugs were hiding. "I asked her why she had done that," Gen. Hertling says, "and she said, 'They killed my two brothers, my father couldn't farm, and I couldn't go to school.' "

It would still be that way without U.S. forces. Iraq is a mind-bogglingly complex country that defies generalizations, except this one -- where U.S. troops have a substantial presence, there is more security, more grass-roots political ferment, and more economic activity.

And on the Political Front

We're all aware the the national Iraqi government is not at all performing like we want it to. Progress is being made, however. The Belmont Club links to this AP story

BAGHDAD - Iraq's Parliament cleared the way Wednesday for provincial elections that could give Sunnis a stronger voice and institute vast changes in Iraq's power structure after the Oct. 1 vote.

The new law is one of the most sweeping reforms pushed by the Bush administration and signals that Iraq's politicians finally, if grudgingly, may be ready for small steps toward reconciliation.

Make sure you follow the link to The Belmont Club for Richard Fernandez' excellent analysis of what it means.

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Iraq Briefing - 11 Feb 2008 - AQI Is On the Run