Iraq update July 23, 2007

The Anbar Salvation Council and The Anbar Awakening are still something we need to watch, as it's the model being used throughout Iraq. I remember a couple of months ago, the Sheiks of the Anbar Awakening went to other provinces to sell the idea of The Iraq Awakening, but I haven't seen that referred to that way yet. I have found a couple of related items though.

• Teflon Don at acutepolitics has a post up called Militias which relates his front row seat view of the Anbar Salvation Council when they first came into existence, and even how it's working today. It's a great piece that I'll add a link to it in the original post to help us a keep track of what might be the key moment (totally missed by the old media) of the surge and related operations.

• Another note about Teflon Don. He came back from leave a few weeks ago and I'm not sure he liked the old media coverage he saw while back here all that much. The tone of his posts since returning are of a more serious note and he seems to be wanting to get the word out about his corner of this war. I'll keep an eye on what he's putting up and continue to point you there.

• The Sunni and Shia tribes meeting at Camp Taji I told you about on Saturday, has resulted with them deciding to name their movemant "The Salahadin Awakening". They are now under attack by both Al Qaeda and and the Mahdi Army. An Al Qaeda suicide bomber penetrated a meeting yesterday and killed 5 senior tribal leaders and wounded 12 others. The Mahdi army has also attacked family members of the group. The Iraqi army is in the area conducting operations. All the other Awakenings have gone through the same treatment, so hopefully, this steels them and they continue on. Again, I think this one we keep an eye on. It'll be the first combined Sunni/Shia Council so, if it works, it will indicate that nationalization for the Iraqi's is not that far fetched of an idea.

The Victory Caucus has retooled their site and you need to check it out. It's going to be a daily check for me, I think. They have maps and tons of good info.