Baghdad Today: A Report from the City
"The Surge is showing signs of success. The progress made so far invites hope and optimism, but it's still too early to celebrate." Mohammed Fadhil, PJM's editor in Iraq files this report.
Since the multiple bombings in Shroja market district on the 12th, Baghdad hasn’t seen any major attacks and there’s a tangible decrease in all kinds of attacks.
Not only official statements say so (Defense ministry officials said today that attacks are down by 80% in Baghdad). It’s a reality I live in nowadays, at least in my neighborhood and its surroundings. It is also what I hear from friends and relatives in other parts of the city.
We are hearing fewer explosions and less gunfire now than two weeks ago and that, in Baghdad, qualifies as quiet.
I agree with what some experts say about this lull in violence being the result of militants keeping their heads down for a while. It is also possibly the result of the flight of the commanders of militant groups. Grunts left without planners, money or leaders wouldn’t want to do much on their own.
During my tour in Baghdad today I had to pull over to be searched at several checkpoints — something that has rarely happened to me before. When you are searched soldiers or policemen check the identity cards of passengers, and the registration papers of the vehicle along with a thorough physical search. Checkpoints deal even more strictly with large vans and cargo trucks.
The interesting thing about new checkpoints is the constant shifting of their location. One hour the checkpoint would be here and two hours later it would relocate to another position within the area. I think this helps security forces avoid becoming targets instead of hunters.
In addition to soldiers and policemen, most checkpoints have one or more traffic policemen reportedly being equipped with laptops that enable them to flag suspected vehicles by offering instant access to vehicle-registration databases.
Side by side with new security efforts is a campaign to clean and redecorate many streets, circles and parks in Baghdad. New trees are planted and damaged street medians and sidewalks are being refurbished. This offers a small yet much needed breeze of hope and normalcy to the traumatized city.
The most significant and encouraging development is certainly this report from al-Sabah:
Brigadier Qasim Ata, an authorized Baghdad Operation spokesman, told al-Sabah that for the 3rd day in a row dozens of displaced families are returning to their homes. 35 families returned in Madain, 7 in hay al-I’ilam and small numbers of families in various districts of Baghdad.
Later reports in the local media indicate that the total number of families that returned home is as high as 130 families across the city, including several families in the, until recently, hopelessly violent district of Hay al-Adl.
The report adds that Maliki ordered that the Bab al-Muadam and al-Shuhada bridges on the Tigris be reopened to traffic next week. This decision came in response to the “notable increase in traffic activity which in turn is a result of the growing feeling of safety”.
Confirming what we said earlier about the recovery of civilian activity, the spokesman said “most stores in the Alawi al-Hilla districts have reopened after times when this area was a scene for repeated terrorist attacks”.
As the effort continues in Baghdad, four other provinces are launching simultaneous plans to support operation ‘Imposing the Law’. Officials in the provinces of Diwaniya, Salahaddin, Wasit and Babil announced that the security forces are implementing a security plan to support and empower the ongoing operation in Baghdad, and to deal with the threat of possible infiltration by terrorists coming from Baghdad.
The progress made so far invites hope and optimism, but it’s still too early to celebrate. Terrorists will keep trying to carry out attacks similar to those in Sadriya or Shorja. They want sow as much death and destruction as they can in order to shake the people’s confidence in the security plan. Such criminals attacks are still quite possible in Baghdad, but even if happen we must not let that stop us from pursuing the objectives of our efforts to stop the death and deterioration, to turn the tide and make progress.
Mohammed Fadhil, PJM Baghdad editor, is one of people behind Iraq the Model
Things must really be looking up if you are planting trees and refurbishing. You would never hear about this from the drive-by media. In fact, there are probably a lot of Americans who don’t realize that you have trees. By the way, I love your pictures.
You guys are really getting desperate when you write stuff like “except for the immense slaughter at a market this week, there’s been calm”.
Wait till the Yanks leave and the militias rush back in to fill the vacuum before you get all excited, dude.
Send this report to the House and the Senate…how can they justify their “non-binding” resolution? specially if the progress continues like this.
This is one of the reasons I went from the donkey to the elephant. The donkey is always on the wrong side and just about wrong on everthing.
Why is all this good stuff happening now? Is it the extra troops? I don’t think so. The increase is small. I think it has more to do with the hype surrounding the surge that has got the bad guys scared.
The lesson may be that war, like business, needs aggressive PR. You have to keep on promising something new and improved. War fighters, and the public, absorb the latest news and internalize it. Then it no longer captures their attention and they get stuck in a rut. We should have been having “surges” every three months or so and aggressively marketing the gains. This would keep the American public interested and the enemy unsettled. Successful war waging is largely a psychological endeavor. I think Sun-Tzu made that point more than a couple of millennia ago.
um, hey there, wing-nuts?
here’s a little reality for you (from the AP)
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Militants struck back Sunday in their first major blow against a U.S.-led security clampdown in Baghdad with car bombings that killed at least 63 people, left scores injured and sent a grim message to officials boasting that extremist factions were on the run.
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The attacks in mostly Shiite areas – twin explosions in an open-air market that claimed 62 lives and a third blast that killed one – were a sobering reminder of the challenges confronting any effort to rattle the well-armed and well-hidden insurgents.
Instead, it was the Iraqi commanders of the security sweep feeling the sting.
Just a few hours before the blasts, Lt. Gen. Abboud Qanbar led reporters on a tour of the neighborhood near the marketplace that was attacked and promised to “chase the terrorists out of Baghdad.” On Saturday, the Iraqi spokesman for the plan, Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, said violence had plummeted by 80 percent in the capital.
for God’s sake, put DOWN the kool-aid. The country can’t afford your fantasies any more.
I’m sorry, “reality-based,” mon semblable, mon frere, but your writing of the obvious, what we all know, betrays a certain ignorance of the man who wrote the article on which you comment. “Left in form, but right in essnece,” as Mao once wrote. But don’t disturb yourself.
Reality-based? The “Reality Based Community”, as it calls itself, is the biggest joke on the internet, and in American politics. If there were actually any people in it who were more than ignorant students who have zero experience in life, leftist travelers who only have electronic muscles, and the intellectual midgets who push the same failed ideas that condemned millions to poverty and oppression, it would be very dangerous, as is any movement or ideology that claims to own reality to the exception of all others. Virtually every single socialist and communist ideology claims the exact same thing, and they use this as their primary excuse to destroy anyone who does not completely agree with them. These “Reality Based” people advocate the use of government force on absolutely everyone but actual enemies of the country. In their “reality” the government is capable of solving every problem of the human condition, but refrains from doing so, because…their enemies refuse to accept “reality”.
Really, I cannot believe that you people come out of your holes and proudly claim that you own reality. If it had not been happening so often on the internet I wouldn’t believe that anyone could be so willing to publicly humiliate themselves! The absurdity of a person or group of people claiming that they alone have all the answers because only they can experience our shared universe is absurd on its face, but to then couple this with leftist pipe dreams that categorically end in misery and oppression is just too much for this humble correspondent to take without bursting out laughing. Truly, it is not that you lack the senses and sense to actually, critically discern the universe, it is simply that you have an overabundance of self esteem, coupled with criminal ignorance, and rolled up in an anti-social package that makes dating and kissing the opposite sex completely out of the question. You are political Trekies complete with uniforms and pointy ears. Get a life! I almost feel like reading your ridiculous posts is going to somehow contaminate me and I’ll get the scent of your absurdity on me!
Claiming to own reality, and that anyone who disagrees with you is, essentially, insane, is the refuge of those with absolutely no logical argument to make, so they simply selectively pick and choose facts that support the opinions that have been given to them. The key to understanding your delusions and false sense of accomplishment is the fact that it is either your way or no way. This the answer from the people who claim to be the masters of nuance and who hold special understanding of complex international problems? PUHLEEEEEZ!
If you weren’t so incredibly pathetic you would be the kinsmen of every totalitarian ideology that ever infected the world. Fortunately you are sad little people wooking for fwiends on the internet because of your wonery. You would see more clearly if you took off the kaleidoscope glasses and put down the bong.