On the DOD’s website today appeared an article posted yesterday by the American Forces Press Service titled,

Americans Can’t Neglect Signs of Progress In Iraq

Americans cannot forget the progress being made in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said from Jerusalem today.

Rice took time off from her trip to the Middle East to speak to Fox News Channel. She said Americans cannot ignore the political and military successes in Iraq.

“I would say to the American people, ‘Yes, this is very hard and very difficult, but we are making a lot of progress in what will be a strategic breakthrough for the United States, which is to have a different kind of Middle East”’ Rice said.

Recent polls show support for operations in Iraq is dropping among the American people. Casualty lists, car bombs and suicide bombers dominate the news, but Rice said there are clear signs of progress. Among them is the capture of “the Emir of Mosul” — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s lieutenant Abu Talha.

The Iraqi forces are growing in numbers and sophistication, Rice said. Iraqi forces took the lead in security for the January elections, for example. Since then, Iraqi forces have taken on increasing security burdens. The 40th Grigade of the Iraqi army handles security for much of Baghdad. Marines participating in Operation Spear in Karabila are operating with Iraqi forces.

The Iraqi security forces now consist of about 170,000 trained and equipped soldiers and police. As those forces grow and gain experience, the security responsibility for coalition forces will shrink, Rice said. 

We’ve been doing increasing damage to the terrorists over there as our troops and their commanders become increasingly more experienced at fighting the kind of fight they face, and the Iraqi forces have the benefit of being trained by the best soldiers in the world.

The Iraqis have demonstrated their enthusiasm for living in a free country by starting up hundreds of newspapers they can now sell without being tortured for their views, electing their government in a democratic election and fighting the terrorists aggressively alongside coalition members as soldiers for their country. They are rebuilding their country in an image of democracy.

Read the article here.

In my opinion, any waning of support for our enterprise in Iraq is the result of the MSM’s one-sided reporting. Somehow, these “journalists” always seem to be looking in a different direction when something positive occurs, but they never miss a negative event and when one happens, they put the worst possible accent on it. When G.I.s are killed, they positively crow about it and when they provide a tally of casualties to date, they sound like they’re bragging about points they’ve made in some game they are playing.

That’s about the size of it, a game, friends. A game of politics in which the stakes could well be our lives and the partisan Mainstream Media hacks could care less, because their priority is discrediting George W. Bush, not the wellbeing of their fellow Americans, world peace nor even feeding the world’s hungry, despite their claims to the contrary. These are educated people delivering the news to the majority of American voters, and there’s no way anyone with even Jethro Bodine’s level of education could fail to see the importance to our own survival of what we’re doing in Iraq.

For some reason, when I think of all those dems following the MSM’s stories and treating them as gospel, I think of….well…. Lemmings…. 

**** As is usually the case with DOD site links, there is a redirect to their main news page. The linked article is the sixth one down. 

Underneath the lead-in to the article is another link, to an article titled, Rice Urges Patience As Democracy Emerges .

Both are under “More Defense News”.