A year later: Surge's successes

President Bush told the nation just more than a year ago he would increase American troop strength in Iraq to improve security and create better conditions for political reconciliation. A year later, Iraqi and American forces have unleashed a new nationwide offensive designed to consolidate the large security gains produced by the president's controversial "surge." The cooperation this effort has received from former insurgents would have been unthinkable 12 months ago.

The Associated Press reports that targeting information from former insurgents allowed U.S. B-1 bombers and F-16s to precisely hit 47 targets in a heavily fortified insurgent redoubt near Baghdad on Thursday, part of a nationwide offensive to oust al-Qaida from bases across Iraq.

Together with progress by American civic action teams that also poured into Iraq last year to begin rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, the surge has been "incredibly successful beyond anybody's expectations," President Bush said Tuesday. American troop strength is now being reduced, he said, in a policy of "return on success." One Army brigade and one Marine battalion have already departed.

It is hard to argue against the success of the surge in improving security and local political conditions. Iraqi casualties have fallen sharply, shops are reopening, people are returning to their homes from exile aboard. Across Sunni regions of Iraq, grassroots "Awakening Councils" of tribal leaders are taking charge of local security with American help and turning against al-Qaida and other die-hard insurgents.

But some Americans are still not persuaded. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said, "No amount of White House spin can hide the fact that the escalation's chief objective of political reconciliation remains unmet, Iraqis have not demonstrated any readiness to stand up and take responsibility for their own country and 2007 was the most lethal year yet for American troops."

Sen. Reid failed to note American casualty rates turned down sharply in the second half of 2007, reaching one of the lowest levels of the war in December. As for the political situation, President Bush said Tuesday that in his recent talk with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, "it was clear … that there's great hope in Iraq that the Iraqis are beginning to see political progress that is matching the dramatic security gains for the past year. There's still work to be done, but it was a very hopeful conversation."

As Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., note in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, the gains of the surge are still vulnerable to an al-Qaida counterattack. Troop cuts, they warn, should not exceed what commanders on the ground recommend. "But," they conclude, "thanks to the courage of our troops, the skill and intellect of their battlefield commander and the steadfastness of our commander in chief, we have at last begun to see the contours of what must remain our objective in this long, hard and absolutely necessary war — victory."

That's a message Sen. Reid and his followers need to acknowledge.