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the surge will be a success, if the gains in security can be translated into gains in stability…if I had to put a number to it, maybe it’s three in 10, maybe it’s 50-50, if we play our cards right.

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They are about 70,000-strong. They have brought a new degree of calm to Sunni areas of Iraq - and, for US President George W Bush, they represent one of the few success stories of 2007.

The self-styled Awakening Councils, made up of former insurgents who have switched sides to fight al-Qaeda, are a key element in the current US strategy in Iraq.

But among the country's competing factions and militias they are winning distinctly mixed reviews.

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Originally posted by John K:
Interesting article on BBC website:

US Arming Sunni Insurgents

The 9 US soldiers killed in Iraq today are a sober reminder that it's way too early for the neo-cons to be toasting the "success" of the surge.

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I was going to say that I'm not sure they are, but then I remembered the Republican Presidential candidates scrambling to take credit for the "surge" of late. So I guess they must be pretty sure it's a success ... otherwise that would rebound pretty harshly.

That said, I'm betting it will rebound pretty harshly. Before Election 2008? Maybe not.

"Surge" or not, the Americans are still losing a hell of a lot of people over there to death and injury. What some are calling a success sure looks like a lot of loss of treasure and blood to me.

And we should recall that the Americans are doing EVERYTHING in their power to keep the "official" Iraq death toll down. Hiring mercenaries who don't count in the official Pentagon records; offloading responsibility to the "Iraqi police" or, as we've just seen in that BBC article, Sunni insurgent turncoats.

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During the surge, the number of Iraqis displaced from their homes quadrupled, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. By the end of 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there are over 2.3 million internally displaced persons within Iraq, and over 2.3 million Iraqis who have fled the country.

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One reason for a decrease in the level of violence is that most of Baghdad has essentially been divided along sectarian lines. Entire neighborhoods are now surrounded by concrete blast walls several meters high, with strict security checkpoints. Normal life has all but vanished.

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Underscoring another failure of the so-called surge is the fact that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad remains more divided than ever, and hopes of reconciliation have vanished.

According to a recent ABC/BBC poll, 98 percent of Sunnis and 84 percent of Shias in Iraq want all U.S. forces out of the country.

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[ 10 January 2008: Message edited by: Left Turn ]

The fact is that the oil is controlled by the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north and the Sunnis are left out and will be left out.

The sooner the US moves out, the sooner Iran moves in. Time is on the Iranians' side because the longer it takes for the US to leave,the weaker the US becomes.

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Witnesses say 20 people were killed in an US air strike in the area.

They said the dead included 17 members of the same family.

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An Iraqi couple and their son, 19, have been killed when US soldiers stormed a tiny one-room house north of Baghdad.

The US military says its troops killed the two men in self-defence after gunfire came from the house, but local people say the victims were unarmed.

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