On Balance (Good News Series)...

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7 Dec. Washington Times editorial - On Balance.

The first in a series of editorials on underreported good news from Iraq.

If Washington seems increasingly pessimistic about Iraq these days, Iraqis themselves aren't. In fact, 47 percent of Iraqis surveyed by the International Republican Institute in October said that the country is headed in the right direction (37 percent said it wasn't). That's a higher percentage than last year, when 42 percent of Iraqis thought so (45 percent did not) -- despite the problematic ongoing security problems. Here are some of the underreported reasons why...

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On Balance.

Whatever happened to Baghdad's infamous airport road? "Route Irish," so named for the Fighting 69th, which patrolled it until recently, is still the only way to reach the capital by air. But it has dropped from the headlines -- because it is now relatively safe...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

There aren't many mentions of Najaf in headlines these days. That's a good thing: The city's security situation is vastly improved, and so Najaf is less interesting to the media...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

Yesterday, Ambassador Dan Speckhard, head of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office in Washington, reported that 30,000 new businesses have registered with the Iraqi government in the last year. "And who knows how many unregistered business starts there were?"...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

Are coalition forces showing progress on Iraq's problematic Syrian border? One promising sign is how little resistance coalition forces have met in their Euphrates River-area campaign to sweep out Sunni insurgent strongholds and notorious al Qaeda in Iraq sites near Syria...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

In today's Iraqi elections, Coalition forces will not be providing protection at polling sites. They have provided Jersey barriers, wire, other tools and are making "quick-reaction forces" available. But otherwise, Iraqi forces will be on their own -- a sign of confidence in the country's new-and-improved police and military forces...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

Iraq's largest Sunni coalition is preparing to drop claims that the December elections were tainted. Yesterday, the Iraqi Consensus Front announced it had broken with other Sunni groups and plans to accept the results once the election-monitoring process is complete...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

Another sign of division between Iraqi insurgents and al Qaeda operatives emerged Monday when insurgents in Ramadi announced a pact against their former al Qaeda allies -- which prompted a round of assassinations between the two sides...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

The latest evidence that a rift is growing between Iraqi insurgents and al Qaeda in Iraq: The Arab newspaper Al-Hayat reported four days ago that 270 foreigners have been apprehended by authorities in Anbar province. Local tribes, with the cooperation of insurgent forces, are turning on the foreign fighters they once regarded as allies...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

During January, the number of insurgent terrorist attacks in Iraq increased, but suicide bombings decreased sharply -- leading some analysts to suggest that new rifts between al Qaeda in Iraq and Iraqi insurgents are harming al Qaeda's effectiveness...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

In a January University of Maryland poll of Iraqis whose results are mixed news for the U.S. war effort, a few positives stand out: 77 percent of Iraqis thought the war to oust Saddam Hussein was worth it, even "considering any hardships you might have suffered"...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

The 1st Brigade, 7th Division of the Iraqi Army raided a factory in Ramadi yesterday and arrested 15 suspected insurgents who were thought to belong to a cell of foreign terrorists.

Eleven of the 15 suspects are Syrian and 4 were Iraqis, according to the U.S. Marine Corps...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

On Saturday Iraqi special forces and an elite Macedonian Ranger unit apprehended 18 suspected terrorists and captured three weapons caches north of Baghdad. The caches contained rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank weapons, surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns and scores of smaller arms and munitions.

The strike, dubbed "Operation Level Sand," was intended to reduce terrorists' sanctuary and seize key weapons stockpiles, according to the Multinational Forces Command.

U.S. and Iraqi forces also found a terrain model and two underground tunnels at the site of one of the weapons caches, signs that the cache was a key facility for terrorists before the strike.

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Washington Times - On Balance.

The Iraqi army's 5th Brigade, 6th Division formally assumed responsibility for security of parts of central and Southern Baghdad after a transfer ceremony on Monday, the American Forces Press Service reported this week. The transfer means that nearly 60 percent of Baghdad is now officially guarded by Iraqi forces...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

The reputed fourth-in-command of al Qaeda in Iraq was detained this week in Baghdad. "Mohammed Rabih Abu Zar, number four in al Qaeda in Iraq, was arrested a few days ago in Baghdad," Gen. Hussein Kamal, intelligence chief for the Interior Ministry, told Agence France Press. Few additional details were immediately available...

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Washington Times - On Balance.

Forty of the Iraqi army's 102 battalions have now taken over primary security responsibilities in their areas of operation...

Now, about two-fifths of the force is taking the lead and is doing so in places like Ramadi and Samarra in addition to the capital.

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Washington Times - On Balance.

The number of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq in January fell to its lowest monthly total since the beginning of 2004, according to new Pentagon data...

Among the reasons analysts cite are decreased capabilities of the terrorist insurgency, improved methods against improvised-explosive devices and the ongoing turnover of lead security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.

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Washington Times - On Balance.

Iraqi authorities revealed the arrest yesterday of an al Qaeda operative who allegedly confessed to carrying out 116 beheadings. Maj. Raid al-Mafraji of the Interior Ministry said a large weapons cache and three other suspected terrorists were also nabbed...