Michael Yon back in Iraq (1 Viewer)

[gumbeau]

His latest dispatch
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/rubs-31-january-2008.htm

He is working on a new book that you can pre-order.

I've always found his work to be compelling and not what you get from any netwrok supported source.

He even publishes daily Intel summaries like this one directly from the source.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/media/pdf/Intsum/Intsum_30_Jan_08.pdf

 

[champ76]

These two paragraphs are very telling:

"The 1-4 CAV has not been attacked since 9 September 2007. This is incredible, considering that their AO had been one of the worst battlegrounds in Iraq. I remember my first embed with 1-4 CAV in late March 2007. As soon as I arrived, I went out on a raid; the next day we were in a firefight. But even then, there were glints of hope. Now it’s nothing but tea and progress. Of course, the young combat soldiers are getting restless and want to head over to Afghanistan or up to Mosul where the fighting is full on.

The neighborhood is mixed Sunni and Shia. There is so much cooperation between the 1-4 CAV soldiers and their Iraqi neighbors, both Sunni and Shia, it seems surreal. Lieutenant Colonel James Crider, commander of the 1-4 CAV, told me the story of one local bad guy who had been detained but was released, only to return to the neighborhood. Within a day, eleven Iraqis had either called in to 1-4 CAVs tip line, or stopped soldiers on the streets to report the bad guy’s presence. Incidents like this explain why Al Qaeda is having a hard time trying to re-germinate here."
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/med..._30_Jan_08.pdf