The untold stories of success in Iraq

Watching the news and reading national publications, it's easy to accept the conclusion that the war in Iraq is lost and American troops are wasting their time and lives there.

In a year and a half, the thinking goes, President Bush will be out of office, and the next president will guide the country back to peace and friendship with the rest of the world.

In a way, we in the media are captives to the nature of news. It's not news that a truck convoy made it safely to its destination without being attacked by improvised explosive devices. Nobody's much interested in incremental progress in one place when there's destruction to report elsewhere.

But are news reports the best measure by which to set national policy? Should the public pressure that results from negative news overshadow positive progress reports?

Columnist Brian Bresnahan doesn't think so. The Benedict, Neb., commentator, used the May 29-June 2 period as an example of how positive new items go unnoticed.

* May 29, Iraqi and U.S. forces captured nine suspected insurgents, including a known sniper and confiscated illegal weapons in the Adhamiya district. An air strike killed two insurgents placing a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, an Al Qaeda regional emir and 13 others were captured, and a terror cell was broken up in Samarra and nine others captured.

* May 30, 23 suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq members were arrested in four separate raids, a police chief, his brother and 14 bodyguards were arrested for corruption, and five suspected terrorists and a suspected cell leader were arrested in Sadr City. It was also announced that 15 insurgents suspected of kidnapping, torturing, murdering civilians and attacking coalition forces were captured.

* May 31, it was announced that a Jaysh al-Mahdi commander was arrested, who was allegedly responsible for providing financial, logistical and political support for multiple insurgent groups and terrorist organizations, and is also suspected of ordering murder and intimidation of local Iraqis, ordering attacks and overseeing training of insurgent recruits, including construction and detonation of IEDs and projectiles.

* June 1, it was announced that six terrorists had been killed, a vehicle-borne IED was destroyed and 18 other suspects were detained including suspected members and leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

* June 2, more weapons and explosives were seized, a weapons cache discovered, a key Al Qaeda leader was detained, two insurgents trying to emplace an IED were captured and eight others were detained.

More importantly, three more provinces in Iraq were "turned over to the Kurdish Regional Government, who took official control of three provinces from Multi-National Force -- Iraq at a formal ceremony."

Critics contend that it isn't the media's job to pass along every official announcement unedited, but as Bresnahan concludes, "Would your impression of the war be different had you been informed daily of these successes?"

Good question.

Even more importantly, what will our attitude toward the war in Iraq be if we are forced to deal with unchecked Islamic extremism far into the future?