Oh Harry! Where are you?
Another latecomer to the reality in Iraq is now the United Nations:
The United Nations’ chief envoy in Iraq gave a mixed report on the situation on Monday, saying security had improved but an Iraqi political consensus was needed for lasting stability.
“We cannot ignore the recent improvements both in the security and political situation in Iraq,” Staffan de Mistura, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), said in a speech to the Security Council.
Reasons for the reduced level of violence included the increased presence of U.S. and other troops, a ceasefire declared by Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia and increased cooperation with Iraq’s neighbors, he said.
Of course he has to throw in the “no political consensus” meme, which everyone knows will take even more time then reducing the violence did. But they are grudgingly admitting that its looking up in Iraq.
The Secretary-General also sees improvement, but as always he adds the caveats:
In a report on UNAMI last week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said despite fewer attacks in Iraq, insecurity still limited activities of U.N. staff and the political situation has not improved as much as had been hoped.
But Ban said it was “encouraging” that Iraqi leaders in Baghdad and the northern Kurdish region had begun cooperating with his envoy de Mistura to defuse tensions.
And then Russia got into the mix saying that violence has been reduced but they were skeptical it would last.
“Declaring victory is premature,” he told the council. “There are no guarantees that the reduction in tension noted in the report will continue in the future. The wave of violence which has swept the country recently confirms our fears.”
Wave of violence? Puhlease. AQ set off a few bombs and its now a “wave”.
So while the al-Reuters report is encouraging that a few leaders are coming to grips with the reality on the ground, that being the fact we are winning, it’s always amusing to listen to the UN add their “but” to the description.
Even more amusing, if you think about it, is how much more was accomplished when the UN was removed from being involved in Iraq.
Oh, and lets not forget that all this isn’t the result of the surge, its because the Democrats won in 2006 /sarc
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The Dhimmicrats are just flat-out retarded.
Lest I forget…Dingy reid is an idiot.