Um…except for McCain, Bush, most of the Congressional Republicans and of course Petraeus:
The troop surge in Iraq has been more successful than anyone could have imagined, Barack Obama conceded Thursday in his first-ever interview on FOX News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”
As recently as July, the Democratic presidential candidate declined to rate the surge a success, but said it had helped reduce violence in the country. On Thursday, Obama acknowledged the 2007 increase in U.S. troops has benefited the Iraqi people.
“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”
So the standard bearer of the Democratic brand finally admits the surge worked. It’s about time, talk about stating the obvious 
The Vets for Freedom will probably be ecstatic (maybe they should run an ad thanking Obama). When do you think Reid admits that we haven’t lost the war?
BTW, why do you think he’s admitting this now before McCain’s speech? Isn’t that going to give McCain some great ammunition?
(via)
posted September 5, 2008 at 12:11 am
I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what any politician in either party says about US forces–obviously Obama is not going to want to be seen as detracting from the accomplishments of US troops. But not every military expert agrees that the surge should get much credit for the decrease in violence. The man I link to below (he’s fought in Iraq himself) states what most people already know (that is, people who follow the subject)–two of the biggest reasons Iraqi and American deaths are down is that
A) Before the surge, the Sunni leaders decided they’d had enough of al Qaeda and its attacks on civilians.
Those were unpopular even with Sunnis, though attacks on Americans were a different matter. But the Sunni leaders decided they hated al Qaeda more than the Americans and switched sides.
B) Sadr chose to stand down in August 2007.
Apparently, according to the following, American tactics didn’t really change all that much with the surge and from what I’ve read (in a USA Today article in late 2007 which I won’t link), the killing of insurgents by Americans did go up during the surge, but not by some extraordinary amount. (And of course we hear virtually nothing about civilians accidentally killed by US forces, though polls of Iraqis show what they perceive as unnecessary US violence against civilians to be a major concern for them.)
Anyway, the link–
Link
posted September 5, 2008 at 1:56 am
“finally admits”
obama said some weeks ago that lowering the level of violence in iraq is partly credited to the troop surge. but i guess for you righties, things just don’t really happen unless you see it on bill o’really.
we’re not surprised a bit.
but tell us, mccain, the goal was to reduce the level of violence to provide the “space” for the government to do their work. has the iraqi government done their work? and be honest now… remember we have access to the GAO reports.
posted September 5, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Yes, the surge seems to have worked. And not one single weapon of mass destruction has been lobbed out of Iraq at the USA since the surge started.