Isn't there a famous line in Max Havelaar about there never being bad news from the colonies?
Soon after writing this post, I heard David Olney's "Omar's Blues" on the radio.
Key lyric:
"The bad news is bad
Let's skip over that
The good news is good but it's a trifle thin."
I couldn't find a video link.
Roger
Thanks for the information.
Another significant item that does not make it into detailed statistical report, since it involves items that do not easily fit that kind of reporting, show some definite trends.
In May the Long War Journal reported on the offensive in Sadr City:
The Iraqi Army said three of its brigades were involved in the operation, and moved into Sadr City in seven convoys. Six of the nine available battalions from the three brigades were pushed into Sadr City. Between 4,000 and 5,000 Iraqi troops are now operating inside Sadr City.
Commenting on this in my review of the Iraq Situation:
This is an operation the size of the attack on Fullajah in November 2004. That the Iraqi's are able to launch it pretty much on their own is compelling evidence of a major training success for the Iraqi Army. It was the failure of a similar Iraqi only operation in December 2005-January 2006 that set the events in place that led to the surge. That operation failed because they did not have enough strength and too many of the units were not up to the opposition they faced. With the success of the Iraqi dominated operation in Basra recently it seems that the Iraqi Army has achieved a decent level of maturity.
There are still a number of problems. The strictly military ones are the decision, sensible in the context, to concentrate in combat units and leave much of the logistics in US hands and the unavoidable transferring people out of established units to cadre new ones. In the long run this is good because it shortens the time to get the new unit into combat ready status but in the short run it reduces the readiness status of the losing unit.
Commenting by HaloScan.com
