Good News from Iraq - a surprising source

If you have time, click the link and read the comments on this blog - a lot of good information and not a lot of pettiness.

Britain and America: BBC reports that US tactics in Iraq may be beginning to work just as Washington prepares to give up:

"The BBC has not been a supporter of the Iraq war so it is quite something when its World Affairs Editor John Simpson concludes that America might finally be pursuing the right tactics in Iraq. Mr Simpson made his conclusion at the end of a report on BBC1's main evening news bulletin. After interviewing General David Petraeus, the Commander of US troops in Iraq, the BBC journalist said that the real battle was no longer in cities like Baquba which American troops had just liberated from Al-Qeada but in Washington where patience was running out.

General Petraeus said that the kind of counter-insurgency operation now underway usually took nine to ten years but his hearts and minds approach to building security in Iraq had only just begun. Mr Simpson contrasted the liberation of Baquba where 'only' eleven Iraqi civilians had been killed with the situation in Fallujah where large-scale civilian casualties had hardened Sunni opinion against the coalition. The people of Baquba had also grown tired of the suffocating rule of Al-Qaeda and welcomed the arrival of the Americans."