So says the bank, so says the experts who know of how important a victory in Iraq is. Back in June Harry and the Retreaters called the Iraq conflict lost and for all to pack it up and head home. Those with intelligence said, “Let’s wait, after all, General Patraeus has a report due in September”. Since that time – althought the MSM refused to report on it – the success of the surge has been leaking out. Now in of all places the Ny Times, we get this report:

“VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration‚Äôs critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.

In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.

In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).”

The article was written by Michael O’Hallen and Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institute who just visted the region, they report as many others that there has been progresss – significant progress – and that the surge is working.

How Harry and the Retreaters must feel now, after resolution after resolution of defeatest moves to run away from Iraq – from the terrorists, not – I might add – for necesssity, but purely to bow to their antiwar uber liberal base. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, anyone who calls for retreat from Iraq spits on the memory of every soldier who has given their ulitmate to the success of the mission in Iraq.

Although they won’t -for they are morally bankrupt – they should hang their heads in shame, whether it’s Jack Murtha – who wrongly accused Marines of murder. Dick (head) Durbin who referred to our soldiers as Nazis, the Democrat have been showing that they are unfit to lead this nation in a time of war. They are unfit to lead this nation at anytime, and we must get busy to get them out of office as soon as possible.

UPDATE: As expected the usual round of cut and run media hacks come out to attempt to rebut the article. Newsbusters takes Joe Klein to the woodshed.