You can add USA Today to the list of main stream media that has begrudgingly acknowledged that President Bush’s surge strategy in Iraq is working. Not only is it working, but it’s continuing to work.

USA Today further acknowledges what most rational Americans have known for some time. That Congressional Democrats are living in perpetual denial about the war in Iraq. Harry Reid is like a parrot that just keeps squawking, “The Surge isn’t working!,” even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, seem lost in a time warp. They could try to impose new benchmarks that acknowledge the military progress. Instead, too many seem unable or unwilling to admit that President Bush’s surge of 30,000 more troops has succeeded beyond their initial predictions. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who in the spring declared the war lost, said last week that “the surge hasn’t accomplished its goals.” Anti-war Democrats remain fixated on tying war funding to a rapid troop withdrawal. Yet pulling the troops out precipitously threatens to squander the progress of recent months toward salvaging a decent outcome to the Iraq debacle.

Even John Murtha one of the most despicable members of Congress finally acknowledged that the surge is working. Much to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi’s chagrin, the war is in fact not lost and we’re finally making progress.

Yet “dumb and dumber” still keep trying to undermine the war effort by dragging their feet on funding, or putting time tables for withdrawal. Democrats for years complained that President Bush was being stubborn and needed to “change course” in Iraq.

They were right about that initially, and all the criticism was justified. So finally, the President fired Rummy and brought in Bob Gates. After that he brought in General Petraeus to implement his counter-insurgency strategy along with an infusion of 30,000 troops to Baghdad.

So while a little late to the game, President Bush did “change course” in Iraq and we’re finally getting a handle on things. It’s time now for Democrats to do a little self-reflection and take their own advice about not being stubborn and refusing to change course.

Democrats should realize that acknowledging progress in Iraq, doesn’t mean they can’t still hate the President with every fiber of their being as they so clearly do.

There is no doubt that Iraq remains a deadly place, and the Iraqi government is not acting like much of a government. To be fair, it was almost impossible for the government to really function with violence of almost biblical proportions taking place in the capital.

With violence finally subsiding to a large extent, we’re gonna have to give the Iraqi government more time to get on it’s feet. I don’t know how much time, but I suspect as long as it takes.

-Chris Jones 

The American military says the weekly number of attacks in Iraq has fallen to the lowest level since just before the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, an event commonly used as a benchmark for the country’s worst spasm of bloodletting after the American invasion nearly five years ago.

Data released at a news conference in Baghdad showed that attacks had declined to the lowest level since January 2006. It is the third week in a row that attacks have been at this reduced level.

The statistics on attack trends have long been a standard measure that the American military has used to assess violence in Iraq. Because the data have been gathered for years and are deemed generally reliable they allow analysts to identify trends.

Military officials said the attacks were directed against American and Iraqi forces, as well as civilians. But since the source for the data is American military reports, and not the Iraqi government, the figures do not provide an exhaustive measure of sectarian violence.

Nonetheless, the figures added to a body of evidence, compiled by American and Iraqi officials, indicating that the violence had diminished significantly since the United States reinforced troop levels in Iraq and adopted a new counterinsurgency strategy.

Rough translation…THE SURGE IS WORKING!!!!

So then why do Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi continue to call for a change in strategy???

I bet this was incredibly painful for The New York Times to have to write:

The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.

As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city. In more than 50 interviews across Baghdad, it became clear that while there were still no-go zones, more Iraqis now drive between Sunni and Shiite areas for work, shopping or school, a few even after dark. In the most stable neighborhoods of Baghdad, some secular women are also dressing as they wish. Wedding bands are playing in public again, and at a handful of once shuttered liquor stores customers now line up outside in a collective rebuke to religious vigilantes from the Shiite Mahdi Army.

It was looking like it was gonna be a near total media blackout on the good news in Iraq, but thankfully there appears to be at least a shred of honesty left at the NYT.

-Chris Jones

Much to the chagrin of Democrats, Iraq released new security statistics and declared that “Iraq has defeated the forces of darkness.”

The government released numbers indicating a major decline in violent attacks in Baghdad and the surrounding areas. Attacks such as bombings numbered 323 last month, compared with 850 in February, when a U.S.-led security crackdown was launched, according to the government figures.

“Certainly we still have more to do, but no one can deny that we have passed the difficult stage in Baghdad, the stage that we all had fears of sliding to a civil war,” Ali Dabbagh, a government spokesman, told Arabia TV.

If Mr. Dabbagh thinks that no one can deny the security situation has dramatically improved in Baghdad, he obviously has never met a Democrat.

-Chris Jones