This and more pictures in Wired.

(Via HA)

"The Marines may not have yet won the war in this city, but it sure is starting to look like it. The insurgency in Fallujah is over."

In the WSJ:

Over time, it all just accumulates. This is not a light switch. You don't go from bad to good. You go from bad to less bad. And then you revert again. Progress accumulates over time. You can build on momentum as it is established. As shops get back into business ... and some services ...

It all just accumulates slowly, but surely if you can keep building on the momentum that you've achieved, and that's what we've tried to do, obviously.

* * *
I don't think there's anyone -- the Iraqis included -- who is satisfied with the progress that's been made.

Bingo:

"I tell a lot of my soldiers: A good way to prepare for operations in Iraq is to watch the sixth season of 'The Sopranos,' " said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. forces in central Iraq, referring to the hit HBO series about the mob. "You're seeing a lot of Mafioso kind of activity."

See also here and here.

Rod Nordland in Newsweek:

For someone who has returned periodically to Baghdad during these past four and a half years of war, there has been one constant: it only gets worse. The faces change, the units rotate, the victims vary, but it has always gotten worse. Brief successes (elections, a unity government) collapse as still greater problems rear up (death squads, Iranian-made bombs). The country's sects grow ever more antagonistic; the killings become more depraved; first a million, then 2 million, then 4 million Iraqis flee their homes. Al Qaeda loses its leader when Jordanian Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is killed. But it steadily replenishes its ranks of suicide bombers, and morphs from a largely foreign force into a far more dangerous indigenous one. And so on.

For the first time, however, returning to Baghdad after an absence of four months, I can actually say that things do seem to have gotten better, and in ways that may even be durable. "It's hard to believe," says a friend named Fareed, who has also gone and come back over the years to find the situation always worse, "but this time it's really not." Such words are uttered only grudgingly by those such as me, who have been disappointed again and again by Iraq, where a pessimist is merely someone who has had to endure too many optimists. It doesn't help that no sooner have I written these words than my cup of coffee spills as a massive explosion shakes our building—the first blast near our place in weeks, and the more shocking for that. We grab body armor and helmets and await the all-clear. It is "only" an IED near the entrance to the Green Zone, targeting a U.S. convoy and killing two civilians and one American soldier.

The explosion is the exception to the rule -- but one of the reasons the U.S. military is gun-shy about claiming success too soon. IED attacks across the country are at their lowest point since September 2004, down 50 percent just since the surge peaked last summer. There hasn't been a successful suicide car bombing in Baghdad in five weeks, and the few ones in recent months have been small and ineffective. There used to be four a day, many of which claimed scores of lives each. "Very sustained trends," the official military spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, says cautiously. "But it's far too early to call this a statistically significant trend."

This bit should be educational to those who don't understand how US combat forces have enabled the rise of the citizenry:

The imam of the Firduz mosque, Sheik Waleed al-Asawi, who witnessed the kidnap attempt, was so angry he went to the mosque and prayed for Allah to kill the Qaeda men. "We were guilty," he says, "because we made Ameriyah a safe place for Al Qaeda." Abu Abed and his men confronted the kidnappers and ended up in a fire fight that the terrorists looked to win, until the sheik called the Americans to come to their aid.

"My men thought I was nuts," says Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, commander of the First Battalion. "I went into a house, surrounded by former insurgents, thinking this could go either way. They were ready to go on operations [against Al Qaeda] right away. It was surreal, fighters jumping on our vehicles." Since then the Americans have picked off one Qaeda cell after another with information Abed and his followers have provided.

Read the rest.

Today is the final day of fundraising for Project Valour IT, which provides voice-activated laptops for injured troops.

Notably, Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha visits and comments on the Vermont National Guard:

An important sheik from an Iraqi province had a reunion on Thursday with some Vermont soldiers at the state National Guard headquarters.

(Abu Risha) (voice in Arabic, then translator) ``We would like to express our appreciation to the National Guard and to the state of Vermont.''

(Host) Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha spoke through a translator. He said his province has overcome terrorists and insurgents.

(Abu Risha) (voices shift back and forth from Arabic to English) ``Today in this state ... we present this victory ... to the families of the victims of the soldiers in Iraq ... and specifically express our appreciation to the state of Vermont.''

More here:

In an unlikely Vermont appearance by the Sunni leaders of Al Anbar province Thursday, the moment reflected their unflagging support for the United States' war in Iraq.

"Thank you for all your assistance to your friends in Iraq," Rafe Al-Essawi, former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, told Vermont soldiers through an interpreter.

The Iraqi delegation, fresh off meetings in Washington with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, declared they had achieved victory over al-Qaida insurgents during a visit with Vermont veterans at Norwich University Thursday afternoon. Though insurgent violence is largely quelled, they said, continued U.S. support is necessary to rebuild infrastructure and the economy in Al Anbar province.

"We have defeated al-Qaida in this very large province of Al Anbar as a result of our cooperation with your forces," Mamoon S. Rashid Al-Alwani, governor of Al Anbar, said through an interpreter. "This victory came as a result of our cooperation with your forces and our bloods have spilled together."

I interviewed senior military and intelligence officials to compile a laundry list of factors behind the recent drop in violence in Iraq. An extensive report is up at The Long War Journal.

Mohammed Fadhil explains a nuance of Iraqi society I'd failed to fully grasp on my trips to the region:

In order to make a comparison, and try to predict what's likely to happen in the south, one needs to first understand exactly what happened in Anbar.

The core of the struggle there is an old conflict of interests between clerics and tribal sheiks. The two groups competed for leadership of the society for centuries. Even though the sheik might show loyalty to the cleric he still hides enmity for him; they're each other's nemesis.

This conflict of interests was evident in what happened during the revolution of 1920, less than a century before the division between those who supported the clergy's revolt and those who kept their allegiance to the tribe and preserving its interests.

The difference between clerics and sheiks is huge; the first do not believe in negotiation and speak in terms of "halal" and "haram" claiming to be representative of heaven's justice. Obviously you can't negotiate deals with God so as far as the clerics are concerned, society must follow them, without asking questions.

By contrast, the tribal sheik was raised and taught to know how to lead productive negotiations. Tribal leaders have long played the role of judges to settle disputes among individuals within the tribe or between different tribes and when they do so they try to make sure that decisions are reached through consultation with the two sides of the dispute and would acceptable to both as well. In other words a sheik has to be a good negotiator, willing to hear both sides of the story and convince them to make concession in order to contain the problem and restore order -- it's an important part of his job.

Read the rest for his assessment of how "Awakening" prospects in southern Iraq are different from Anbar.

(Via HA)

Jeff Emanuel writes about an intense battle with al Qaeda that could have politically influenced the overall course of the war. A teaser:

The battle had only been raging for five minutes, but it already seemed like a lifetime to Moser -- and it had cost the lives of at least two of his fellow paratroopers. With the machine gun fire pouring in from three sides, the concerted efforts on the part of the fighters in the stairwell to reach the rooftop and Morley's body (and do who knew what from there), and the grenades exploding around him, Moser could do nothing but hold what little ground he had, and keep trying to suppress the fighters in the stairwell. From his position by the stairs, the situation seemed utterly hopeless. He could see Morley and Willis lying on the roof, unmoving, knowing that they would never move again. Further, as he couldn't see or hear a thing from the south side of the building top, due to the dividing wall and the withering gunfire coming from all sides, he had no choice but to assume that Corriveau was gone as well.

He had never felt more alone.

Read the whole thing, it's excellent.