Beyond Fallujah

A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from Iraq.
BY ARTHUR CHRENKOFF
Monday, November 22, 2004 12:01 a.m.

In the fortnight that saw the massive assault by American and Iraqi troops on Fallujah, the flare-up of violence elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle and the murder of Margaret Hassan by her kidnappers, not to mention the controversy over a Marine shooting dead a wounded insurgent, it's hard to believe that anything positive might have also been happening in Iraq.
Yet neither Fallujah nor the Sunni Triangle is the whole of Iraq, just as violence and bloodshed are not the whole story of Iraq. Lt. Col. Victor Zillmer of Lindale, Texas, recently volunteered to return to Iraq as the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Baghdad. His impressions of the country today seems to be shared by many in Iraq outside the media:
As I expected, it was not a total war zone with massive explosions and burning vehicles everywhere as commonly portrayed in the press. It was typical Baghdad, only the traffic was even worse. The economy must be doing much better over here, for the streets are jammed with cars of every description, with many of them newer and better condition than when I left in May. As compared to 18 months ago when I first arrived, the traffic has increased a hundredfold.


READ MORE:
A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from Iraq.
Mr. Chrenkoff is an Australian blogger. He writes at chrenkoff.blogspot.com.

And while you're reading the good news from Iraq .. and there is a lot of it .. Take the time to read this excellent column from Victor Davis Hanson. The war on terror has been a resounding success, and it is worth stopping and taking note of the score.