From the Defense Department's American Forces Press Service . . .

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2006 -- The battle for Ramadi has "tipped" in favor of the government of Iraq and the coalition, the commander of 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, said today.

Army Col. Sean MacFarland told the Pentagon press corps in a video teleconference call that attacks are down 25 percent over the past couple of months, and coalition forces, together with the Iraqi security forces, have steadily increased their presence inside of the city.

Ramadi, the capital and largest city in Anbar province, has been an al Qaeda in Iraq and Sunni insurgent hotbed. But now the tide seems to have turned, MacFarland said. "The Iraqi police recruiting has soared tenfold, and the Iraqi army readiness has improved to the point where Iraqi army battalions are now assuming the lead in portions of the city and its suburbs," he said.

Coalition-sponsored public works projects are bringing improvements in Iraqi quality of life. "Water and power projects are moving forward," he said. "And by February, we will have more than doubled both basic services."

MacFarland said he is encouraged by the attitude of the people of the city. The people who were fence-sitters in the battle between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda in Iraq are stepping forward and cooperating with Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, he said.

"I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they're finding themselves trapped between the coalition and (Iraqi security forces) on the one side and the people on the other," the colonel said. "Now it's the al Qaeda forces that need to be worried about living in those neighborhoods. They stick out like a sore thumb. Everybody knows who the terrorists are."

Local sheikhs are cooperating with the Iraqi government. Tribal leaders are steering new recruits to the police, and they are becoming more effective. MacFarland said that Iraqi police in Ramadi today intercepted insurgents driving a car loaded with rocket-propelled grenades. "The insurgents tried to run away," he said. "(The police) chased them, and they killed or captured the entire group."

In another instance, the police intercepted a suicide car bomber before he could detonate the car at an Iraqi police position.

"There's still a lot of work to be done, but I'm very encouraged by the direction of events here," he said.

The colonel said the insurgency is "beatable" in Ramadi, but it will not be coalition forces that do the beating. "The instrument of their destruction will be the Iraqi security forces," he said. "And that's why we've been working so hard to develop the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army in and around Ramadi, and to that end the acceleration of their readiness has been very heartening."

The aim of U.S. forces in the city is to drive the level of violence in Ramadi down to a level that the Iraqi security forces will be able to manage after the coalition's departure. "So I am responsible for setting the conditions for success for the (Iraqi forces), and I think we're making good headway on that," he said.

But MacFarland again stressed the importance of getting the population on the Iraqi government's side. "It's got legs; it's moving forward, and it's because success begets success," he said. "The people are beginning to recognize that the coalition and the Iraqi security forces mean business, that they're here to stay -- especially on the Iraqi security force side -- and that they have the ability to stay.

"At the same time, they've come to recognize that al Qaeda offers them nothing, nothing but death and destruction, and that they are turning away from the al Qaeda fighters and turning toward their own sons who are in the Iraqi security forces."

[Web Version:
http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=1344]

He went by the name of JJ.

"I've got a very common Iraqi name," he told me, "but I still don't want to take the chance that someone will find out who I am and come after my family."

He was almost apologetic about the job he was doing in Iraq, interpreting for a U.S. Army combat unit. He struggled with the idea that he might be betraying his own people. And though the soldiers he served believed his work was invaluable, he degraded the worth of his services.

"You shouldn't believe what interpreters tell you," he said.

Because they won't translate exactly?

"No no. I'll tell you what people say. But they won't say what they mean. In Iraq, we often say what we believe people want to hear. It's another kind of truth."

I thought about JJ and his different kind of truth this morning as I read an Associated Press article about a recent poll that concluded that about 6-in-10 Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces. Slightly more want the U.S. out of their war-torn nation within a year.

Polling in Iraq is a difficult and dangerous business. You just can't walk around Baghdad with a clipboard and a lab coat. So pollsters hire locals -- mainly college students -- to do their field work.

Did the Iraqis being polled -- fearful of repercussions for giving the wrong answer, eager to provide the answer fellow Iraqis want to hear -- give different answers to their fellow countrymen than they would to an American pollster? Undoubtedly.

But does that make the results of the survey less true? That's harder to say.

At very least, the results shouldn't be derided and set aside -- as they undoubtedly will be by this nation's stay-the-coursers. Nor should they be taken as gospel -- as they will by the get-the-heck-outers.

Responding to the survey results, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said such numbers are contrary to what he has learned about Iraq.

"What I hear from government representatives and other anecdotal evidence that you hear from Iraqis that is collected by embassy personnel and military personnel is that Iraqis do appreciate our
presence there," he told the AP. "They do understand the reasons for it, they do understand that we don't want to or we don't intend to be there indefinitely."

I wonder, when I hear such statements, whether men like McCormack realize that in Iraq there are many kinds of truth.

I find it to be a good exercise to take a few moments to review what many media sources are reporting about a particular subject. The result is still a smattering of snapshots, but it can produce an interesting montage of big and small pictures which complement one another in subject and context.

This is a collection of news reports collected by the Military Times press organization this morning...

The Washington Times:
Army Considers More Combat Units for Iraq.

The Army is studying whether to add more combat units to the rotation plan for Iraq and is considering accelerating the deployments for some brigades to meet a top commander's decision to keep more than 140,000 troops in the country through at least the spring of 2007, Pentagon officials say.

The New York Times:
Unit Makes Do As Army Strives To Plug Gaps

The pressures that the conflict in Iraq is putting on the Army are apparent amid the towering pine trees of southeast Georgia, where the 3rd Infantry Division is preparing for the likelihood that it will go back to Iraq for a third tour. Col. Tom James, who commands the division's 2nd Brigade, acknowledges that his unit's equipment levels have fallen so low that it now has no tanks or other armored vehicles to use in training and that his soldiers are rated as largely untrained in attack and defense.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
War in Streets Fails To Hinder Iraqi Schools

After a few organizational days last week, public school started in earnest Sunday for an estimated 6 million Iraqi children. The government eased procedures for children to transfer schools because hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been displaced from their old neighborhoods by sectarian killings and intimidation. Yet the opening of the school year revealed a youthful optimism about the future and friendships, in contrast to the gloomy, grown-up despair throughout the city.

Washington Times:
U.S. Soldiers See Inept Output by Iraqi Troops

U.S. commanders have hailed the performance of Iraqi troops in the crackdown on militias and insurgents in Baghdad. But some U.S. soldiers say the Iraqis serving alongside them are among the worst they have ever seen -- seeming more loyal to sectarian militias than the government.

Washington Post:
Iraqi Parties Reach Deal Postponing Federalism

Iraq's fractious political parties reached a deal meant to prevent the country from splintering into a federation of three autonomous zones until at least 2008. The agreement forestalled concerns that the debate over federalism, a vague concept enshrined in the constitution but defined differently by various political groups, could cause the country's fragile multi-sect government to collapse.

From the Associated Press this week . . .

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan says the United States threatened to bomb his country "back to the Stone Age" after the 9/11 attacks if he did not help America's war on terror.

The threat was delivered by Richard Armitage, then the deputy secretary of state, to Musharraf's intelligence director, the Pakistani leader told CBS' "60 Minutes."

"The intelligence director told me that [Armitage] said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'" Musharraf said in the interview to be shown Sunday on the CBS television
network.

It was insulting, Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark," he told reporter Steve Kroft.

But, Musharraf said he reacted responsibly. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation and that is what I did," he said.

This from The McClatchy News Service yesterday . . .

U.S. commanders are unlikely to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq before next summer, the top U.S. military officer in the Middle East said Tuesday.

U.S. military leaders had hoped to bring the number of American personnel in Iraq down to around 100,000 by year's end, but high levels of sectarian violence probably will prevent any reductions below the current level of 147,000 before the end of spring, said Gen. John Abizaid, who oversees the U.S. Central Command.

"I think these are prudent force levels," he said. "I think they're achieving the military effect."

More American troops could be sent to Iraq, Abizaid said. "If it's necessary to do that because the military situation on the ground requires that, we'll do it," he said.

Iraq's population of 27 million is roughly a 10th of the population of the United States. So for purposes of perspective -- and yes, I realize this is not a original exercise -- a few quick snapshots of what the U.S. would look like if it were experiencing the chaos that Iraq is suffering . . .

-- We'd be losing 2,000 police officers and soldiers each month inside our own borders.

-- Across the nation, each month, 750 car bombs would be detonated.

-- Across the nation, each month, 20,000 civilians would be killed.

-- About 200,000 insurgent fighters would be hiding out in our cities, towns and countryside.

-- Death squads would be roaming the streets of our major cities, kidnapping and killing hundreds of people each day at random.

Kofi Annan warned today that Iraq was in danger of sliding into a full-scale civil war.

In danger? Is he kidding?

I'm not sure what the hang-up is about acknowledging that Iraq -- and particularly, Baghdad -- is embroiled in a civil war. That fact alone doesn't preclude a positive outcome, it simply acknowledges a
situation that needs to be rectified.

WHY BILAL HUSSEIN'S CAPTIVITY ENDANGERS REPORTERS AND SENDS A POOR MESSAGE ABOUT US INTENTIONS IN IRAQ

I only met Bilal Hussein once, in Ramadi mid-September of last year, but the story he shared with me as we stood outside the bullet-pocked entryway of the Al Anbar provincial capitol building has stuck with me ever since.

"I've been arrested many times," he said. "Both by the Americans and by the terrorists."

Such is life for Iraqi journalists. Spending time with the Americans made him an enemy to the insurgents. Spending time with the insurgents made him an enemy to the Americans.

All things considered, he said, he'd rather be held by the Americans. They didn't beat him or threaten to kill his family. He laughed about this, as I recall.

Perhaps it is ironic, therefore, that it was The Associated Press photographer's contacts with resistance groups that resulted in his being tagged a security threat and incarcerated, without charge, for the past five months.

"The information available establishes that he has relationships with insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the normal scope of journalists conducting legitimate activities," Army Maj. Jack Gardner wrote in an e-mail to Associated Press editors.

To be certain, Bilal's relationship with insurgent groups was closer than that of most other journalists. The Fallujah native wouldn't have been able to get the photos he did -- one of which was included in a package of pics that won a Pulitzer Prize -- were it not for his access.

That access not only provided photos of insurgents in action, it opened a small window into a world that America -- and the American military -- does not understand. His photos showed both the humanity and the brutality of insurgent fighters in Al Anbar. As a U.S. commander bragged to me that his forces were taking absolute control of Ramadi, such work showed that security in Anbar was in no way
absolute.

But that kind of access also infuriated many of the military officers I met in Ramadi. When an AP photo depicting rebels firing rocket-propelled grenades in Ramadi ran in our newspaper (it is possible that Bilal was the anonymous photographer) officers derided the picture as "insurgent propaganda." We pulled it from our Web site after being told U.S. intelligence officers were certain it had been staged months earlier -- a claim that appears to have been untrue.

In any case, the officers reasoned, any decent person with Bilal's kind of access should turn informant. To that end, several U.S. officers even suggested I tell my Iraqi counterparts that they should help the U.S. ferret out the insurgents they kept as contacts. I declined to do so.

Even if it was naive, the request was understandable. The officers wanted to exploit every opportunity possible to keep their troops from harm. But although that may help explain the U.S. decision to hold Bilal captive, it does not excuse it.

For journalists, especially Iraqi journalists, the precedent being set with Bilal's captivity is exceedingly dangerous. If reporters who associate with insurgent groups are to be treated as insurgents, then what of reporters who do not? Should it be assumed that Iraqi reporters who associate with the U.S. military and Iraqi government -- who risk their lives to bring a democratic perspective to Iraq -- are in alliance with the enemies of the insurgency? And what, then, can we expect will be the response of resistance fighters who have already shown a propensity to behead now and ask questions later?

The relationship Bilal kept with Iraqi insurgents does not appear to be substantially different from the company he and hundreds of other journalists -- many of whom, as embedded reporters, eat, sleep and go on missions with U.S. troops -- have kept with the American military. Associated Press editors, having reviewed Bilal's work, say they have seen nothing that indicates he had inappropriate contact
with the rebels.

"We're not in this to choose sides, we're here to report what's going on from all sides," AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carrol said in a story published this week acknowledging Bilal's captivity. Rather than call for his outright release, however, the AP has conceded it might not have all the facts. It's editors have only asked that, if Bilal is not released, he be charged with a crime under Iraqi or international law.

This seems exceedingly reasonable.

I certainly did not get to know Bilal well enough to say whether he crossed over the lines of ethical reporting in a way that gave aid to the insurgency. Did he give away American troop positions to Iraqi insurgents? Did he help plot attacks? Did he stand as a lookout for the rebels as U.S. convoys approached the location of a roadside bomb? If so, was his story about being kidnapped and beaten by insurgents a cover to hide his true motives?

If U.S. or Iraqi officials have evidence supporting the claim that Bilal is a security threat, he should be charged, he should be tried and, if found guilty, he should be punished.

But our nation cannot bring justice to Iraq if we are not willing to practice it ourselves. And holding Bilal on the accusation that he was simply doing his job as a journalist sends the message that this nation does not care to understand, it only cares to silence voices it doesn't like.

Rick Egan, who spent two months with U.S. troops in Kuwait and Iraq in the fall of 2005, travels each summer to the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.

"There were a couple of very interesting displays paying tribute to American servicemen who have died in Iraq," Egan said after returning from the high desert event this week. "I thought this one was the most impressive. It is titled '. . . What Remains . . .' More than 2,600 personalized crosses -- one for every military serviceman or woman reported killed over the past 3 1/2 years in the most recent Iraq War."

The display was initiated by Vietnam veteran Skip Edwards of Crawford, Colo., and is now maintained by 30 volunteers from Telluride, Colo.

Adam Galvez of Salt Lake City was the last soldier posted on the back row of crosses when the traveling memorial was most recently constructed, Aug. 25.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction is a regular source for findings of corruption and inadequacies in reconstruction projects in Iraq. So it is worth noting when SIGIR finds a project has been completed on time, correctly, within budget and without any obvious corruption.

The Critical Care Unit at Baghdad's Ibn Al Bitar hospital was ransacked by looters following the American invasion in March, 2003. The Army Corps of Engineers this year issued a $580,000 contract to an Iraqi construction firm to build a new CCU.

The SIGIR review of the project isn't exactly exciting reading. It simply states "this report does not contain any negative findings of recomendations for corrective action."

A success among many other reconstruction failures? Certainly. But in Baghdad, where it is an understatement to say that critical care facilities are in great demand, it is an extremely meaningful success.

For more information about the Ibn Al Bitar hospital, I'd recommend NPR reporter Corey Flintoff's Sept. 3 report from Baghdad.

It will, no doubt, take many more successes to bring this hospital back to its pre-war condition, but among so much bad news about reconstruction, it may be nice to know that successes are not
impossible.