Iraq update August 8, 2007

Well, first off, Michael J. Totten has a great dispatch which is an interview he did with an Iraqi who works as an interpreter. It's called (appropriately) An Iraqi Interpreter's Story. Here's your tease:

MJT: Is there a solution to the problem in this country?

Hammer: Nuke Iraq.

MJT: Be serious.

Hammer: I am serious. If you screen all Iraqis, 5 million of them would be good people. Clear them out, then kill everyone else. Syria and Iran would surrender. [Laughs.]

There's a whole lot more so take the time to read it.

Bill Roggio has his next Iraq report up at The Weekly Standard. The hunt for Al Qaeda is still ongoing and there's a new offensive which started on August 4th to the north of Baqubah, in Diyala province.

Along with the continued hunt for Al Qaeda, the heat's been turned up on Al Sadr's people too. There are reports of several "rogue" elements of the Mahdi army that have been hit in the last week or so. Al Sadr himself is still hiding out in Iran, so this problem seems to be doing a slow melt with the coalition applying the catalyst.

Something new that I've picked up on in the last couple of days or so is the fact that we're now doing operations in Sadr city. This is new. The Mahdi army got hit big time here in the last day or so. It looks to me like we are applying equal amounts of pressure to both Al Qaeda and the Iranian backed Shiite militias now.

Also, Michael Yon has part II of Bread and a Circus up now. It's another long read, but worth the time in my opinion. But, if you don't have the time, there's one part you need to hear so I'll relay it here. It's when he had traveled from Baqubah to Baghdad with a caravan of trucks to pick up food allotments for the people of Baqubah. He was in a discussion with one of the Baghdad officials who was reluctant to release food to Baqubah as it would just fall into the hands of Al Qaeda.

I recalled one of the bureaucrat’s comments, upon hearing that al Qaeda had scattered like rabbits out of Baqubah. He seemed at first not to believe that news, but once he got confirmation, he made a point to tell us what that news actually meant: if al Qaeda was done in Baqubah, al Qaeda was done in Iraq.

This sure sounds like progress from the Petraeus strategy to me.