Iraq seemed to be on the edge of being torn apart by civil war.
These soldiers from the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team were among the troops deployed to Iraq as part of 'the surge'
Early the next year, President Bush announced that he was sending more troops to Iraq. He thought it would help stop the violence.
GEORGE W. BUSH: “These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission – to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.”
The temporary increase of about thirty thousand troops came to be called "the surge."
In September of two thousand seven, the top commander in Iraq reported to Congress that the violence was decreasing. The surge may have helped create the conditions for this change but there were other reasons as well. Middle East expert Judith Yaphe says many Iraqis decided to work with the Americans to defeat the insurgency.
JUDITH YAPHE: "The real truth is – and it's a good news story – that the Iraqis themselves saw that this was a greater danger to them, that there was nothing to be gained, the Sunnis of Iraq in particular, saw that al-Qaida was hurting them, that it was a danger to them, that there was much more to be gained by aligning with the US forces.”
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2013-11-25
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