First Posted: 1/15/2009

There isn't much good news coming out of Iraq, although there is plenty of good news in Iraq.
But the headlines tell us of suicide attacks and more U.S. soldiers being killed and maimed, and violence that promises to escalate as that country limps toward elections in January. The last thing the freedom-haters in Iraq want is elections, because democracy to them is a cancer that promises to spread.
But this bit of good news was in an Associated Press story - albeit buried - that we published on Monday. We wish to give it more prominence by highlighting it here.
During a recent interview, Ghazi al-Yawer, the interim president of Iraq, said that it was a mistake for the U.S.-led coalition to dismantle Iraq's security forces during the initial phase of the Iraq War. This is yet another mistake that 20/20 hindsight tells us that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made. It is generally agreed that the U.S.-led coalition would have been better off to weed the Saddam loyalists from the Iraqi military and keep what remained to provide security in post-war Iraq.
Because that didn't happen, the U.S.-led coalition has inherited the difficult job of trying to rid that country of terrorists while also training Iraqi citizens to do that job themselves, tasks that are demanding and time-consuming.
Here's the good part: Al-Yawer also said, “As soon as we have efficient security forces that we can depend on, we can see the beginning of the withdrawal of forces from our friends and partners and I think it doesn't take years, it will take months.”
We know that President Bush isn't going to abandon Iraq to the terrorists, and that American troops will be committed to that country for the foreseeable future. But we are anxious for the day that American soldiers will be able to retreat to the security of their bases in Iraq while Iraqis move to the front to take on the terrorists.
Al-Yawer believes that could happen sooner rather than later. Time will tell us if his vision forward is as clear as the hindsight of those who tell us now how this war should have been waged.