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Marines yield control of town to Iraqis

by TheBigRuski | February 25, 2008 at 11:01 am

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Iraqis have taken responsibility for securing parts of their own country on more frequent occasions and in at least two major ways recently, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

HIT, IRAQ -- In a pageant filled with poetry, song, political speeches and a display of the Iraqi security forces' increased firepower, the U.S. Marines on Thursday turned over major responsibility for protecting this Euphrates River valley town to the Iraqi army and police.

It was the second such turnover in recent weeks in the western province of Anbar, once a major battleground with Sunni Arab insurgents, with more expected, Marine officials said.

Also, from the LA Times:

Marines from the 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, based in Twentynine <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = RUNTIME />Palms, Calif., are redeploying outside the city limits but will remain close enough to provide assistance to the Iraqis if insurgents attempt an assault...

and...

A similar turnover was accomplished late last year in Baghdadi, also along the Euphrates. In addition, Marines are pulling out of Haditha as soon as the Navy construction team, the Seabees, finishes building a camp for them just outside the river town...

Iraqi forces conducted their first all-Iraqi operation this week in Haditha, searching former insurgent hide-outs, officials said...

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BigT

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 12:51 on February 25th, 2008

Progress is being made, Iraq is stabilizing, deaths and bombings are down, but the central theme from the "anti-war" crowd is that it costs too much, too many people have been killed (murdered in their words), basically: blah, blah, blah.

I just wish that people would be intellectually honest enough to say that Iraq has turned out to be a success, in fact, a much bigger success than they ever thought it could be.