Surge

It has apparently. begun, and the rash of terrorist attacks over the past week, including the suicide truck bombing Saturday of a Baghdad marketplace frequented by both Sunni and Shia makes it appear, at least on the surface, that the terrorists were either attempting to get their last licks in before the expected crackdown before melting away, or the were planning to stay and fight. Of course, with different groups making different decisions (some reports indicate the Shia militias may go dormant; past experience tends to show that diehard al Qaeda elements prefer to seek their martyrdom), the attacks may have no more "meaning" than they typically do.

CNN reports on what appears to be the start of the much-debated "surge."

U.S. and Iraqi forces on Monday were preparing to launch a major security crackdown in Baghdad to curb sectarian bloodshed as a wave of bombings pushed the country's death toll to more than 1,000 in seven days.

Even as the security plan was being finalized, fresh violence continued to escalate the carnage with fresh explosions across the Iraq capital claiming more lives.

The city was still reeling from a massive suicide truck bomb on Saturday that detonated in a bustling market place, killing nearly 130 people in one of the worst attacks in the city since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

The United Nations says almost 17,000 people have died from fighting in the last year in Baghdad.

There was no official timeline for the launch of the new security plan, but U.S. Colonel Douglass Heckman, the senior adviser to the 9th Iraqi Army Division, said it was expected to begin shortly after a transition of military control in the city.

"Officially the Baghdad Operational Command takes over tomorrow, so the expectation is that the plan will be implemented soon thereafter, very soon thereafter," he said, according to The Associated Press.

Two Iraqi newspapers have reported the operation, the third attempt since May 2006 to pacify the capital, would begin Monday.

Heckman said thousands of U.S. and Iraqi reinforcements already were in place for the neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweep to clamp off the violence by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia, AP said.

Greyhawk has a round-up at Mudville Gazette that suggests the surge is starting today, and that a Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne is already deployed in Baghdad as part of the first wave of the surge.

Back in the States, our feckless Senators, led by the craven John Warner, (R-Va.), and Carl Levin, (D-Mich.), are now set to attempt to debate their gutless non-binding opposition to the surge. This is especially disgusting when you take into account that these senators already know (or should know) that U.S. and Iraqi units are already engaging.

What moral cowardice it takes to debate a "non-binding resolution" which has no responsibility associated with it. What moral turpitude to attempt to undercut a battle already being joined.

I don't expect much from our Senators, but I do expect them to have enough courage to either issue forth law, or shut up. A non-binding resolution is the mark of a political coward; it means nothing, stands for nothing, and merely serves to provide them "wiggle-room" in either direction depending on the outcome of the battle.

Michael Yon, currently in Iraq spoke about the surge on yesterday's The Glenn and Helen Show. He said it will be like "unlike anything we've seen before."

Watch, and we will see. At this point, with so much of the public against the war, the future of our involvement in Iraq depends on the outcome.

Update: I just confirmation from a source in Baghdad. The "surge" started today, and is underway.

Update: I just called MNSTC-I PAO LTC Kevin Buckingham to get official word on the surge, and "the offical word" is that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will release the official word of when the surge starts.

We do know that Iraqi forces already establishing checkpoints throughout five districts, and we know it was Iraqi soldiers (with U.S. forces in support) that killed Khadhim al-Hamadani, a top al-Sadr official in the Medhi Army, in a raid last night.

Readers should keep in mind that the official, announced start and end dates of military operations are not always the same as the actual start and end dates.

According to al Sabaah, battalions of the Iraqi 3rd, 5th and 7th Divisions, along with Interior Minsitry commando units, are currently being deployed.