Iraq Update--And Grunt's Eye View

If you haven't already, surf over to Instapundit's post that begins with a quote from Strategy Page plus three related emails. Some highlights:

• Iraqi popular opinion has turned against terrorism in a big way. Apparently the key event was the revelation that Osama bin Laden had appointed Abu Musab al Zarqawi as "Emir" (leader) of al Qaeda efforts in Iraq and commanded him to go forth and kill big-time. But as suicide bombing attacks increasingly failed to reach American targets, and killed Iraqis instead, it appeared that a Saudi (bin Laden) was telling a Jordanian (Zarqawi) to kill Iraqis. This attitude never made headlines, but it slowly spread among Sunni Arab Iraqis over the last year.



• [A Major General just home from Iraq] showed a graph of attacks in Sadr City by month. Last Aug-Sep they were getting up to 160 attacks per week. During the last three months, the graph had flatlined at below 5 to zero per week.
  
  His big point was not that they were "winning battles" to do this but that cleaning the place up, electricity, sewage, water were the key factors. He said yes they fought but after they started delivering services that the Iraqis in Sadr City had never had, the terrorist recruiting of 15 and 16 year olds came up empty.



• [When a trooper's US leave was over,] at the Atlanta airport when [his wife] was seeing him off, people would clap as they walked down the concourse -- just like in the Budwiser commercial.



• I was sitting at a SW Airlines gate near the main terminal when I heard loud, extended clapping further down the gateway. I stood up and looked in that direction. In a few seconds, a group of 50 or 60 Army men in fatigues turned the corner and passed all of us on the way to the terminal. Everyone in the gateway passage either stopped or stood and clapped as they passed.

Read the Professor's whole post.