Obama: Surge Succeeded Beyond ‘Wildest Dreams’

[Atomic Rooster]

Obama Says Iraq Surge Success Beyond `Wildest Dreams' - Bloomberg.com

Barack Obama said the surge of American forces in Iraq has ``succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,'' though Iraqis still haven't done enough to take responsibility for their country.

``The surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,'' Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a recorded interview broadcast tonight on Fox News's ``The O'Reilly Factor'' program.

Obama, who has made his early opposition to the Iraq War a key part of his campaign, was among Democrats in Congress who spoke out against the troop increase and predicted it would fail to end the violence.

Well I'll be. . .

Obama said he ``absolutely'' believed the U.S. is in a war against terrorism and identified the enemies as al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ``a whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America who have a distorted ideology.''

Iran also is a ``major threat,'' he said, though warned against the danger of lumping different groups together as a common foe.

Obama said it would be ``unacceptable'' for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. ``It would be game -changer,'' he said. ``I would never take a military option off the table.''

Looks like Bush and Co. aren't the only war mongers we have.

[Pexster]

You either took those quotes and reached that conclusion purposefully out of context, or you did not watch the interview. Your conclusion is 180 degrees off.

[jokostel]

Regardless... all the ragging that Obama did about the surge, and now he backtracks...

It's a typical poltician flip flop.
Dem or rep.... they do it all the time.

It's also known as "foot in mouth" syndrome.

[Hey-Todd]

Originally Posted by Pexster

You either took those quotes and reached that conclusion purposefully out of context, or you did not watch the interview. Your conclusion is 180 degrees off.

Those quotes are right out of the Bloomberg article that Atomic Rooster cited... he didn't take anything out of context.

I missed the interview, so I can't speak for the authors.

[Pexster]

Obama has not "backtracked." That is just factually incorrect.

[Sarah L]

Originally Posted by Pexster

You either took those quotes and reached that conclusion purposefully out of context, or you did not watch the interview. Your conclusion is 180 degrees off.

I saw the interview and the Rooster got it right. Obama still tries to put the cart before the horse as far as the surge is concerned. Local Iraqi's leaders finally switched over to us because of the surge. They had been waiting for a commitment that showed we were not going to abandon them. Iraq would have been won without the surge but it shortened the war. What a bunch of you arm chair generals do not get is that TIME was always on our side.

Our enemies needed to get us to quit. If Obama had his way, our enemies would have declared a victory and would be right about that. They also would be able to generate millions and recruit millions boasting how the Great Satan can indeed be defeated.

[MTAtech]

This is the logic of the surge success.

If I do "A" and "B" happens, "A" caused "B" to happen. The problem is that "C", "D" and "E" were also happening at the same time.

In Bob Woodward's new book, he writes, "four factors combined to reduce the violence: the covert operations; the influx of troops; the decision by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his powerful Mahdi Army; and the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied with U.S. forces."

Of course, one of the stated purposes of the surge was Iraqi political reconciliation. How is that coming along?

And, of course, had Obama been the President in 2002, we wouldn't be debating the surge at all, since the U.S. wouldn't have invaded a country that didn't need invading.

[Gomer]

Regardless of what McCain says... the Anbar Awakening started before The Surge.

McCain Falsely Claims The Surge ‘Began The Anbar Awakening,’ But CBS Edits It Out»

During an interview with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), CBS Evening News host Katie Couric noted that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) said recently that “there might have been improved security [in Iraq] even without the surge” and asked McCain, “What’s your response to that?”
After first calling Obama’s claim “a false depiction of what actually happened,” McCain proceeded to falsely claim that the surge “began the Anbar awakening“:

McCAIN: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.

But in a puzzling move, the CBS Evening News did not actually televise McCain’s false claim tonight. As MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported, “CBS curiously, to say the least, left it on the edit room floor. It aired Katie Couric’s question, but in response, it inserted part of McCain’s answer to another question instead.”
CBS’s full interview with McCain (with video) appears online. CNN aired the portion that CBS edited out. Watch it:
In fact, the Sunni revolt against Al-Qaida in Iraq’s Anbar province — commonly referred to as “The Awakening” — “began” long before Bush even announced his “surge” policy in January 2007. As the New York Times noted in April 2007:

The turnabout began last September [2006], when a federation of tribes in the Ramadi area came together as the Anbar Salvation Council to oppose the fundamentalist militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

But also, President Bush himself noted this fact in a speech to the Naval War College in June, 2007:

Last September [2006], Anbar was all over the news. It was held up as an example of America’s failure in Iraq. The papers cited a leaked intelligence report that was pessimistic about our prospects there. […]
About the same time some folks were writing off Anbar, our troops were methodically clearing Anbar’s capital city of Ramadi of terrorists, and winning the trust of the local population. In parallel with these efforts, a group of tribal sheiks launched a movement called “The Awakening” — and began cooperating with American and Iraqi forces.

Spencer Ackerman notes that the colonel McCain cited is “now a one-star general” and had explained the “Awakening” to a reporter in September 2006 “before it even had a name.” “For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge is either a lie or professional malpractice,” added Ackerman.

[Pexster]

Another factor is that a lot of the ethnic cleansing and flight had already been completed. So, yes, "The Surge" helped, but only in a much broader context.

[Sarah L]

Originally Posted by Gomer

Regardless of what McCain says... the Anbar Awakening started before The Surge.

Your report is wrong, the surge did indeed shift many over to our side in itself. As I said our commitment did indeed convince many towards our side.

I WAS THERE.

EITHER WAY OUR ARMY HAS WON

Go ahead and play down our success, our blood, our sweat as nothing.