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Surge Successful By Any Measure, Pentagon Official Says
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| Contributor | kal |
| Last Edited | kal Jul 26, 2008 09:22am |
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| Category | General |
| News Date | Saturday, July 26, 2008 03:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | The surge in Iraq has been a success by any measure, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said during a news conference July 23.
The policy, announced by President Bush in December 2006, pushed additional brigades in to Iraq to provide a security umbrella so the Iraqi military could build and the country’s government could grow.
The surge has allowed Iraq to make improvements from security, political and economic standpoints, Morrell said. The last of the five surge brigade combat teams recently left Iraq.
“By every metric that we measure violence in Iraq, there has been a dramatic improvement from where things were before the surge,” Morrell said. “I'll just point to one, and that is [that] in July of last year, we had 79 U.S. [servicemembers killed in action] in Iraq. We have four thus far this month.”
The dramatic security gains have provided room for political and economic successes. “You name it, it is happening in Iraq,” Morrell said. “Do you want to talk about political gains? We've had basically all the major benchmark legislation passed.”
The Sunni bloc has returned to the government, 10 of 18 Iraqi provinces are under local control, and Najaf International Airport has reopened. “You see a $300 million luxury hotel opening up in the Green Zone [and] $50 million in refurbishment of the airport road,” Morrell said. “There's economic investment, and there's political progress. There's increased security. All those things are undeniable, and they are attributable to the fact that we plussed up forces in there.”
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