Iraq - A lively Baghdad, back from the dead

You won't see much of this in the left wing media.

"As for the Americans, they are still here, of course, but standing ever more in the background. Early this month, I joined a convoy carrying Tariq al-Hashemi, one of Iraq's vice presidents. Hurtling through Baghdad at high speed, we came upon a caravan of American Humvees. I waited for Hashemi and his men to slow down, but the Iraqis - guns bristling, sirens wailing - barreled past. The Americans hurriedly pulled over and made way. Never in three and a half years in Iraq did I see anything like that.

The other day, I rode in a helicopter to Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, the big slice of desert west of Baghdad. Two years ago, 30 marines and soldiers were dying there every month. In 2005, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia declared Anbar the seat of its "caliphate." Since then, violence in Anbar has plummeted. Al Qaeda has been decimated. I was coming in for a ceremony, unimaginable until recently, to mark the handover of responsibility for security to the Iraqi Army and the police."