Short Overview: Progress in Iraq

In '03 we deposed Saddam with a lightening blitzkreig. We kept moving in a sandstorm. We made the greatest one day advance of any army in history (160 miles). A testament to American mobile logistics.

Saddam skips town and his fasicst thug generals are rounded up and invited to stay in some special hotels left over when the previous occupants were invited to return to their usual pursuits by Saddam before he left town.

Then we fumbled for a year or so fighting the insurgents on our own, getting to know the place, the players, the local customs, and trying to figure out what to do next. All the while ordering long lead items like power stations and electrical substatioins. And finding Saddam living in a sewer. After having a duel with his two sons (late and unlamented) who died in a hail of gunfire in a bathroom. Some kind of family fetish I expect.

Then some guy figures, it is starting to get calm enough for elections, and can we design a system for a country of 25 million and install it in time to hold fair elections? Can we get candidates to run? And so there were elections. Three of them in a year. And six months after the last, we have a sovereign government. Who can't wait to get rid of us, after they have a few political problems forcefully ironed out.

All the while we are recruiting and training an army and police force. A year and a half later and the army is performing moderately well and the police force needs some serious attention. All but four provinces are pacified and the Sunnis are scared to death that we will leave them to the tender mercies of the folks they have been oppressing for the last 30 years and bombing for the last 2 1/2. The Kurds in the north are doing well (they have been under American protection for a decade and a half) and the Marsh Arabs are doing better now that the marshes are being restored. Baghdad and its environs are a problem. As are attacks on the oil infrastructure.

The long lead items are getting installed and plans are being made for a troop draw down when the Iraqi Army gains some more manpower and experience. They are having no trouble getting recruits despite bombs going off in the recruiting line.

So I see continued progress with some areas that need attention.

We've come a long way baby.

Way too early to give up.

Technorati:
Iraq, Iraq War, Progress, Iraqi Economy, Iraqi Elections, Marsh Arabs