Crocker Says Insurgency is Pretty Much Done in Iraq

The Insurgency Got More Desperate Over The Years...

Ambassador Crocker doesn't strike me as a guy prone to bullshit about Mission Accomplished, and last year he famously told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that one word summed up Iraq...fear. So when he recently talked with reporters about how the insurgency was just about done, there is reason for optimism:

"You talk to people (Iraqis), and they just say, `Never again. We almost destroyed ourselves,' " he said in an hour-long interview. "There is almost a kind of embarrassment over it: 'How could we Iraqis do that?' "

His characterization of the state of the insurgency was striking, given its central role in the more than 5-year war and its proven ability to adjust, regroup and recruit. Crocker did not assert that the insurgency was dead, but he came close to casting it as having surrendered the initiative and lost its appeal.

Of course this didn't come with a lot of hard work and life lost on the battlefield. Fallujah 2004, Najaf 2004, Tal Afar 2005, Ramadi 2006, Dora 2007, Baqubah 2007, Mosul 2008...the list goes on and on. Never forget.