Holy Joe continued yesterday to parrot the new right-wing talking point on how great things are becoming in Iraq. Recently John McCain claimed (then disavowed) that General Petraeus rides around in an unprotected Humvee. Now Lieberman is talking about how much safer things are and how confident the troops are becoming around Baghdad. Unfortunately after he said this to Wolf Blitzer, on the ground reporter Michael Ware interjected a heavy dose of reality into the show.
From CNN:
LIEBERMAN: But I'll tell you most significantly, the American soldier is more confident walking the streets of Baghdad today. And that's a very important change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: You speak to American soldiers all the time.
Are they more confident walking the streets of Baghdad today?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're certainly never fully confident.
But do they see that there has been some kind of adjustment in the broad climate?
Absolutely, as has been well noted by these soldiers' U.S. commanders. Their enemies, the insurgents and the Shia militias, are, by and large, laying low at the moment, waiting to get the shape of this surge.
Nonetheless, in one of these areas that has been so prominently second by the U.S. military and its Iraqi partners, where U.S. troops are now basically patrolling all the time with this great confidence, an area that had been controlled by the Mahdi militia, today more than 70 people died when two men detonated themselves in a busy market.
And don't forget, we're looking across the country at about 80 American soldiers, sailors and Marines being killed. In March, we're approaching that number again, the third month in a row.
Things are definitely changing in Iraq. Adding 20,000 troops will alter the situation....to a degree. Unfortunately no amount of troops is going to prevent the civil war from happening now. Eventually Al-Qaeda and other groups will reassess the situation and keep attacking Shias, Sunnis and our own U.S. troops.
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