Has anyone pointed out yet that McCain is giving credit to the surge for things that happened not only before the actual surge began, but to events that took place before General Petraeus, the architect of the surge, was even in Iraq? Seriously- the Anbar Awakening:
In the summer of 2005, the Abu Mahals needed help. A tribe of notorious smugglers by the Syrian border, they were being pushed out of their own area by a competing tribe that had struck a deal with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown extremist group that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners.
Some of the tribe’s men had been insurgents, killers of American marines, but the border was an out-of-control no man’s land. So when the tribe proposed an alliance, the Americans decided to give it a try. Weapons and training flowed to the tribe, the extremists were pushed back on their heels — and the Awakening was born.
Another story:
In November 2005, American commanders held a breakthrough meeting with top Sunni chiefs in Ramadi, hoping to lure them away from the insurgents’ fold. The sheiks responded positively, promising cooperation and men for a police force that was then virtually nonexistent.
Hell, Bush didn’t even announce the surge until January of 2007, General Petraeus wasn’t even promoted until a few weeks later, and then did not get to Iraq until February 2007.
The “surge” in forces didn’t begin to arrive in Iraq until the middle of February:
Overall, however, the report said it was too soon to judge whether the security crackdown was working.
The security operation was launched Feb. 14 and is still unfolding as the last of an additional 28,000 or so U.S. forces are getting into position in and around the Iraqi capital. The Pentagon is required by Congress to provide its initial assessment of the operation in July, and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said he will report in September.
Here is Michael O’Hanlon noting that the surge forces were not even completely implemented in June of 2007:
While the American and Iraqi troops for the so-called surge are nearly all in place, it’s far too early to judge the effect. Still, given America’s waning patience with the war and the bad circumstances that prevailed in Iraq when the surge began, optimism is hard to come by. Our latest chart of leading indicators, based on American and Iraqi government data and news reports, doesn’t brighten the picture much.
In other words, not only is McCain completely full of it when he tries to redefine the “surge” to mean something other than the widely agreed upon “surge” in troops, but he really doesn’t even appear to have any of the basic facts right. That he is not being openly mocked in the media is certainly a sign of liberal media bias.