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After six years and more than 4,000 U.S. casualties, the Iraq war has at last moved-judging by its virtual disappearance from the national conversation-into America's outbox of national problems.A USA Today/Gallup poll taken March 18 finds 51 percent of Americans give a positive assessment of the Iraq war, up from 28 percent in January 2007.And 64% now believe the United States can win the war, with 42 percent believing it will do so. Both are the best assessments that Gallup has measured since June 2006.Such opinions lag behind the actual performance on the ground in Iraq. Senior U.S. officials say the Iraqi government has quietly met 17 of 18 political, economic, and security benchmarks set for it more than two years ago.And by almost any measure-U.S. and Iraqi casualties, political vibrancy, economic activity-the "surge" announced by President Bush in January 2007 has worked to produce a safer, more stable Iraq.Nevertheless, top officials at the Pentagon will not say outright that the war has been won. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, until a month ago the commander of Multinational Forces Iraq in the western part of the country, told FOX News that victory is "right around the corner.""We are winning, for sure," he said. But Kelly also recoiled from the word "victory" because of the lopsided nature of asymmetric warfare, in which a superior armed force can be made to appear as though it is losing a conflict due to a single bloody event orchestrated by a handful of terrorists."I hesitate to use the word 'win' or 'won' against an ideology," Kelly added in an interview from his new base at Camp Pendleton."I mean, forty years from now, it's entirely possible that some extremist al-Qaeda type will set off a bomb in central Baghdad or, for that matter, fly another plane into the Sears Tower in Chicago. "But I would say you could probably declare victory-if you really felt compelled to do that-at the point at which the Iraqi security forces, army and police, are shouldering the entire burden and U.S. combat forces are out of the country because they're no longer needed," he said.
By James Rosen
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