Update: A friend is guest hosting at Wizbang talking about how badly this sort of talk is gonna ruin Hagel's chances for a run at the Presidency. I think this post is relevent. If you haven't been to Willisms then I highly recommend it. I am moving this back up top.

Point Counter Point with a US Senator and an Imbedded Reporter who has spent some quality time in two different periods with US Soldiers in Iraq. How about I don't tell you who is who and you try and guess. One is bold the other is not.

I could immediately see improvements compared to my earlier extended tours during 2003 and 2004. The Iraqi security forces, for example, are vastly more competent, and in some cases quite inspiring.

Many of the soldiers I spent time with during this spring had also been deployed during the initial invasion back in 2003. Almost universally they talked to me about how much change they could see in the country. They noted progress in the attitudes of the people, in the condition of important infrastructure, in security.

"I don't know where the vice president is getting his information from. It's not where I'm getting mine from. This administration at the top–the civilian leaders–is disconnected from what's going on."

I observed many examples of this myself. Take the two very different Baghdad neighborhoods of Haifa Street and Sadr City. The first is an upper-end commercial district in the heart of downtown. The second is one of Baghdads worst slums, on the city's north edge.

I spent lots of time walking both neighborhoods this spring something that would not have been possible a year earlier, when both were active war zones, where tanks poured shells into buildings on a regular basis. Today, the primary work of our soldiers in each area is rebuilding sewers, paving roads, getting buildings repaired and secured, supplying schools and hospitals, getting trash picked up, managing traffic, and encouraging honest local governance.

What the establishment media covering Iraq have utterly failed to make clear today is this central reality: With the exception of periodic flare-ups in isolated corners, our struggle in Iraq as warfare is over. Egregious acts of terror will continue in Iraq as in many other parts of the world. But there is now no chance whatever of the U.S. losing this critical guerilla war.

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," he said. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is, we're losing in Iraq."

Contrary to the impression given by most newspaper headlines, the United States has won the day in Iraq. In 2004, our military fought fierce battles in Najaf, Fallujah, and Sadr City. Many thousands of terrorists were killed, with comparatively little collateral damage. As examples of the very hardest sorts of urban combat, these will go down in history as smashing U.S. victories.

And our successes at urban combat (which, scandalously, are mostly untold stories in the U.S.) made it crystal clear to both the terrorists and the millions of moderate Iraqis that the insurgents simply cannot win against today’s U.S. Army and Marines. That’s why everyday citizens have surged into politics instead.

"We keep putting our forces who are over there in these impossible situations, asking them to do these impossible things when there's not enough force structure over there and there never was enough force structure."

Increasingly, the Iraqi people are taking direction of their own lives. And like all other self-ruling populations, they are more interested in improving the quality of their lives than in mindless warring. It will take some time, but Iraq has begun the process of becoming a normal country.

"It's an absolute joke to say that we have a coalition of the willing."

Amusing look into the heart of Senator Hagel who must believe he can run for President. How else to explain a vicious attack against his parties War President the military fighting this war and our allies, the Iraqis who will help us defeat our enemy? Is Chuck Hagel so intent on the Presidency that he will say anything to gain it? There is another political party known for that sort of behavior. Can someone write him a letter of reference? This sort of behavior in another age might have been cause for the same sort of censure being called for in the case of Senator Durbin. Makes one wonder what the hell is going on in the Senate?

If you haven't guessed yet the bolded text was Karl Zinsmeister Editor-in-Chief of The American Enterprise. He has been to Iraq twice for extended stays as an embedded reporter.
The American Enterprise: The War is Over, and We Won:
Chuck Hagel Unplugged
Hat Tip Instapundit

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