Sec. of Def. Gates: "there have actually been some pretty positive stories coming out of Baghdad"

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3924

Radio Interview with Secretary Gates on the Laura Ingraham Show

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INGRAHAM: I want to talk about the surge in Iraq. We've heard a variety of reports. CNN's Baghdad correspondent, Michael Ware repeatedly saying that it's just a disaster in Iraq, that anyone who thinks that things are getting better is essentially smoking crack. And we had people like McCain go over there and say well, things seem to be in certain areas improving.

What can you tell us definitively about how the surge is working so far?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think that first of all, it's important to realize that the -- that only two of the five brigades for the United States -- from the United States are in Iraq and participating right now. And I think that the way I've characterized it is so far, so good.

We expected that there would be dramatic terrorist attacks, attacks of -- on populated areas and so on by al Qaeda. Their -- after all, it's been part of their strategy from the very beginning of last year to try and foment sectarian violence, and I think that some of these large car bombs that we're seeing and so on are an effort to, frankly, try and counteract the positive things that have been happening as a result of even the -- just the two brigades having gone into Baghdad along with a significant number of Iraqi forces.

I think that what we're seeing is that the Iraqis are meeting their commitments to us in terms of the number of troops that they've promised, in terms of allowing us to go into -- allowing both Iraqi and American forces to go into all neighborhoods, without differentiation between Shi'a and Sunni, and not allowing any political interference in terms of the military operations. So all of those things, those commitments have been made, and I think that the general feeling is that -- is so far, so good.

The interesting thing to me is just in the last few days, looking at the news media and on some of the network news and so on -- there have actually been some pretty positive stories coming out of Baghdad. There was one on one of the networks last night about children returning to playgrounds, markets reopening, coffee shops reopening and so on, and those are obviously very positive signs.