Transcript
MICHAEL O'HANLON: This has been the spring of the beginning of the blossoming of the Iraq security forces. There's been a big, big breakthrough in the last three months. Now, when one makes this sort of an observation, of course, in the American debate, it's immediately necessary to make all the caveats that go along with that. This has been a very impressive trajectory. It does not mean we are near any kind of a stable end point. I do not think that we have all of a sudden seen the Iraqis fully emerge as a viable security force that no longer requires American help, that can handle its own security problems on its own, and that is bound to stick together cohesively no matter what. That's not what I'm saying, and I don't think Ken will either.
The point is that the last three months have represented a remarkable period of the assertion of Prime Minister Maliki's leadership and the Iraqi army and national police willingness to go along with him and perform some relatively difficult operations that involve a little more hard fighting than has commonly been appreciated here in the United States, and we'll give some details about a couple of those operations in Basra, Sadr City, and Mosul in the course of the conversation today. So, remarkable progress -- still a long way to go, but, frankly, more progress than I even expected. The battle of Basra, for example, was a much more impressive display of Iraqi performance than I had appreciated prior to going on the trip.
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