Senator gives highly optimistic assessment of Iraq War

Senator gives highly optimistic assessment of Iraq War

A veteran member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee who just returned from Iraq believes the war is being waged even more effectively than the top U.S. commander in Iraq has publicly stated.

A recent trip to Iraq by Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) included stops in the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province. He says "the successes in Iraq are far greater" than what General David Petraeus shared with members of Congress last week.

"The Iraqis have now taken over; they have the numbers and the capacity and they've taken over the battle space in Fallujah," Inhofe points out. "In other words, they're providing their own security," he says. "It's a success story in Fallujah, one of the most difficult areas to deal with."

The situation on the ground in Iraq has improved considerably, the Oklahoma senator asserts. "The troop surge has given us the troop numbers to push al Qaeda out of most of the area in the Anbar province and allowed governance to hold onto their own destiny," he says.

"This is a major change," Inhofe asserts. "This is my seventh time in this area, and the Sunni tribes now see the need to work together with us against al Qaeda," he says.

"They've never done that before," the Republican senator contends, "but they realize now, there are a lot of people in the United States who want to cut and run, and I'm seeing a new kind of cooperation. The Iraqis now have a vision for Iraq and see their place as an important, self-ruling governance."

House Republicans who have soured on the war are "not exercising the leadership they should" but are instead "reading the polls," Inhofe says. However, he insists the troop surge in Iraq is working even better than General Petraeus has indicated to Congress.