Brian Williams and the Two Wars-Updated with more along with video

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An interesting interview with Brian Williams last night on Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Now I want to ask you the big question. How is the surge going in Baghdad?

WILLIAMS: Well, I`ll tell you. It`s in its early stages and with – if you mention the so-called surge, you have to talk about it in tandem with this new policy of these small outposts, these – what they are really is glorified police stations.

We saw it today in Ramadi. There is patently no way a few weeks ago we could have stood outside an armored vehicle and had a conversation as we did today in Ramadi.

They have changed policy there. The war has changed.

Is it better? That`ll be for other people to judge. But it is already being felt here, that is, the increase in troops. The first ones are already here.

There`s a huge field behind us they are clearing for the 3rd Infantry, for their next tour of duty here. And so, we`ll have to wait and see. It`s on a continuum.

But, again, the combination, with this change in policy – getting out, decentralizing, going into the neighborhoods, grabbing a toehold, telling the enemy we`re here, start talking to the locals – that is having an obvious and palpable effect.

MATTHEWS: Do they – have you been there long enough, Brian, this time over, to sense whether it`s different than the last time you were there?

WILLIAMS: Already there are some obvious differences in security in some spots. It doesn`t take that long on the ground to instantly compare it to previous visits. So, yes.

We covered a lot of ground in one day. And when you travel with a three star and a Black Hawk, you can do that. We had a lot of heavy armor on the ground to facilitate our travels.

Still a very dangerous place. There are pockets of peace and serenity where the soldiers can go to relax, the contractors can do their jobs.

But yes, Chris, all of them revolving around the issue of security. There are some very obvious differences, starting with the arrival at the airport.

MATTHEWS: Has there been any cost to morale? And again, it`s a hard one to get perhaps this quickly after a couple of days there, Brian.

But the British withdrawal of troops from Basra, are people feeling we`re out there on point all alone as a country now?

WILLIAMS: I heard no talk of that, and that`s all I can speak to.

Today, the message that we`re prepared to report tonight on “NBC Nightly News” is this kind of tale of two wars.

I`m fresh from, you know, weeks of putting together “NBC Nightly News” and televising this debate in Washington, a lot of members of Congress saying we should be out now.

And today, we literally airlift into a place like Ramadi, where they are so proud of the latest city block they say they have been able to “peacify.” They have been able to forge an agreement with the local religious leaders and knock al Qaeda one city block further away from the center of town.

They are so involved in the battle. Many, many soldiers told me today the local people are so worried they`re going to leave cities like Ramadi and Hit. That`s the war they know.

And they say very politely, they can talk all they want in D.C.; we`ve got to enforce the policy, the job we`re here to do.

Of course it will be tough to be successful if the government isn’t serious about at minimum reducing the influence of insurgent and violent militia groups within the security forces. We have seen some hopeful signs there, so it is nice to see this latest piece of news:

Iraq’s Interior Ministry has fired or reassigned more than 10,000 employees, including high-ranking police, who were found to have tortured prisoners, accepted bribes or had ties to militias, a ministry spokesman has disclosed.

A soon-to-be-released internal inquiry also details 41 incidents of human rights abuse at the ministry. In one case, four members of the national police hanged prisoners from a ceiling and beat them with sticks in a ministry-run prison known as Site 4, according to the report by the ministry’s inspector general.

The United States has pressured Iraq’s Shiite-led government to clean up its security forces as they undertake a broad plan to reduce sectarian violence. Sunni politicians have accused Iraq’s police of collaborating with Shiite death squads.

More than half of those fired or reassigned since June were found to have militia ties, Jassim Hanoon, the Interior Ministry’s deputy spokesman, said in a weekend interview. The investigation is ongoing.

“We are struggling against this disease,” Hanoon said of militia infiltration at the ministry.

[...]

Investigators are using information gathered within the ministry to probe political leaders and members of parliament, something not previously done, Hanoon said. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has vowed to pursue criminal charges against political figures — including members of parliament — linked to extremist groups.

The cases of human rights abuse were detailed in a 250-page annual report that will be released this week, Akeel Saeed, the Interior Ministry’s inspector general, said in an interview.

The four policemen allegedly involved in the Site 4 case were arrested and handed over to Iraq’s criminal court system, Saeed said.

“Under Saddam, investigators had this ideology. Torturing was routine,” Saeed said. “I do feel we’re having an impact, but it takes time, step by step.”

U.S. military advisers are working to better screen and train police, including requiring 15 to 20 hours of human rights training for recruits, said Lt. Col. Pablo Hernandez, a spokesman with the U.S. military unit responsible for training Iraqi police.

“If you look at what they had in the past and the product they’re putting out today, it’s a lot better,” Hernandez said.

For related back ground I suggest the last post from the brothers Fadhil, and IraqPundit sees progress as well. This is a good point which I have made but bears repeating:

Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.

I don’t know whether the Baghdad crackdown will ultimately succeed, but I know that so far it has benefited at least a pair of communities where my own relatives live.

Update: Here is video of ABC News and the surprise over the improvement.

[youtube]jMxg7uwcY9Q[/youtube]

More on Williams report last night from newsbusters:

“This is what the General heard today about how warmly the locals now view the Americans.”

U.S. Army Colonel John Charlton: “They do not want us to leave. They want to see the police come through.”

U. S. Army Lt. Colonel Charles Ferry: “The people here are very glad to see us. They are very hesitant still because they’re not sure if we’re going to stay. They want us to stay.”

Voice of Odierno?: “That’s the issue.”

Ferry: “That’s the whole deal. If we stay down here and to keep beating down the insurgents.”

Brian Williams, to one or more of the officers: “You just said, ‘They don’t want us to leave.’ That’s the tenth time today I’ve heard that. I’ve got to go back to the States and do a newscast that every night has another politician or 12 of them saying, ‘We have got to get out of that godforsaken place.’”

Odierno: “They can talk about policy, okay, and that’s what they have to do back there. My mission right now is to provide protection for the Iraqi people so this government can grow.”

[...]

“Some say they are just waiting to see how long the U.S. will stay and how long this surge will continue. It was obvious, the U.S. announced the surge, they said where the U.S. troops were going and the militia decided they fought the U.S. two-and-a-half years ago, didn’t have a lot of success. They decided this time they’re going to wait it out, see if political pressure in the U.S. can help them win this time.”

Brian Williams: “And General, you and I heard sentiments we don’t often hear today, the U.S. commanders quoting the Iraqis: ‘please don’t leave us.’ And a lot of the U.S. fighters there today said they didn’t want to leave this fight, they are dedicated to it.”

Retired General Wayne Downing: “Brian, every single one of them, I ran into a lot of officers and NCOs that I served with — every soldier that I ran across today I asked him: ‘How do you feel about what’s going on, what do you know about what is going on back in the states?’ And without exception — this was spontaneous, especially when you start talking to PFCs and Spec 4s, they’re going to tell you the truth, no party line. Very proud of what they’re doing. Very, very dedicated. Many of these guys, Brian, are back here on their second and third tours. These are one-year tours. Extremely well trained and very professional.”

MSNBC has a online version of his story here. The Video can be seen here. There are several from the story on the page. I suggest watching them all.
[tags] Iraq, militia’s, security, Brian Williams, Surge, Baghdad, Nouri al Maliki, human rights [/tags]