This report says we are doing well inside Ramadi and making visible progress in snuffing out the enemy inside the city:
Ramadi is both a litmus test for the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq and a laboratory. If we can defeat the insurgent and terrorist forces here, there is no place we cannot defeat them. And from what I found, we are defeating them. It's painfully slow, and our men there are still dying in inordinate numbers from a broad variety of attacks. But a multitude of factors, including tribal cooperation, the continual introduction of more Iraqi army and police, the beginning of public works projects, the building of more Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), the installation of more small operational posts (OPs), and plunking down company-sized Combat Operation Posts (COPs) smack in the middle of hostile territory are destroying both the size and the mobility of the enemy. This time the rats are dying in place.
It helps that the press is not inside Ramadi. Quietly and patiently dismantling the enemy is working. Let's not jinx ourselves by attracting CNN to the place.
UPDATE: I was too hasty. The LA Times is screwing the pooch on one report on Ramadi. And while I don't want to spoil the ending, I don't think I reveal too much by saying that the LAT paints a bad picture of American forces blowing up buildings and killing women and children.
I'm not nearly enough of an optimist to assume this is the only report on the war that the LAT has gotten wrong.
Sometimes I think it would be better if our public got their news from Al Jazeera. At least that source would be obviously slanted. Unlike "our" media that pretends it is objective but which nearly always seems to report in a manner pleasing to our enemies. God help us, are the Pulitzer nominations coming up again soon?
