1. BAGHDAD: Winds of Change
- Author:
- Joel D. Rayburn
- Publication Date:
- 03-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Journal of International Security Affairs
- Institution:
- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
- Abstract:
- BAGHDAD—Most change in Iraq is incremental. For those of us working here in Baghdad, engrossed in the day-to-day details of a particular portfolio, change doesn't really register until we step back and mark where we are against where we began. My own frame of reference dates from December 200, when I first visited Baghdad just a few weeks before the President announced the decision to “surge” U.S. forces into Iraq to deal with a security situation that was spinning out of control. Baghdad was on the verge of a sectarian civil war that Iraqi politicians seemed powerless or unwilling to halt, while Anbar province was in the grasp of a potent insurgency. The mood at MNF-I and the U.S. Embassy was bleak, and a sense of resignation prevailed among the strategists and staff.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq