Iraqi Reporting

JD Johannes confirms Michael Yon's reporting that there is a major turnaround occurring in the Al Anbar province of Iraq. The Sunnis in several towns are fighting back against the Sunni Insurgency and winning. For the time being, this is a good thing. He also says something very intelligent.

When I get home in a few weeks people will ask me, "how's Iraq?"

I will tell them, "I don't know, but I can tell you about the areas that I saw first hand and spent a few weeks living in."

Each area of operation is different. Khalidiyah is only 35 kilometers from Kharma and Kharma is only 33 kilometers from West Rasheed, Baghdad, but they are nothing alike.

Anyone who says they can speak with definitive knowledge about all of Iraq is a fool or a liar or both.

A person with definitive knowledge of Iraq would have to discuss the situation in terms of 4 or more general areas of operation and then break those down even more to Battalion by Battalion areas.

Even then, the information he knows may soon be out of date.

Frankly, it may be possible to get a current wide-ranging picture of what is going on, but it isn't easy. What you have to do is sit a whole lot of people like JD down and have them talk about their individual areas. Hopefully the military is doing this through their reporting processes.