Another hopeful straw in the wind from the Washington Post:

'Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said yesterday that the strength of the Iraqi insurgency is waning as a result of momentum from elections, and he predicted Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against insurgents in most of Iraq by the end of 2005.While acknowledging that Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency gained intensity from November through January compared with the previous year, Abizaid told a Senate panel that the insurgents' failure to disrupt Jan. 30 elections marked a turning point and indicated declining popular support.Insurgents fielded only "around 3,500" fighters on election day, he said, citing U.S. intelligence estimates. Earlier U.S. intelligence had put the number of core Iraqi and foreign fighters at as many as 20,000. "Why didn't they put more people in the field? Where were they?" Abizaid asked in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "They threw their whole force at us, and yet they were unable to disturb the elections. I think that the voting in Iraq, the political process that's going on . . . have driven those numbers [of insurgents] down." '

One cannot repeat too often that Iraq's problems are not over, and more bloodshed must tragically be expected. But as was obvious all along -- not least to the terror masterminds themselves -- if the Iraqi election happened in reasonable order, the 'insurgency' would lose purpose and credibility. We are witnessing abroad an inspirational and hopeful fightback against tyranny ; the tragedy is that so many here in Britain seem so determined only to hate and to destroy.

Posted by melanie at March 2, 2005