Here's what I thought you'd like to hear about today:

1. Iraqi Police - Reaching the Tipping Point?
2. Is Congress Fighting Last Year's War?
3. Winning the Information War on the Ground in Iraq
4. Timing the Bush Veto of the Democratic Surrender Plan
5. The Nature of the Enemy we Face

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Iraqi Police - Reaching the Tipping Point?

I'm a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell's 1996 book, The Tipping Point, in which he describes the similarity between disease epidemics and changes in social trends. For example, from the study of epidemics and arithmetic, we know that if 100 people are exposed to a virus, and 10% of those exposed get the disease, 10 people will get sick. If those 10 people expose another 100 people, each of those ten will infect another ten. On the other hand, the disease is constrained by the fact that people who catch it can take themselves out of the population, and recover. So the epidemic grows as the infection rate increases, and shrinks as the recovery or isolation rate increases. If these are in equilibrium, the disease slowly makes its way through the population without reaching epidemic proportions. But a very small change in any of these rates can result in a sudden and deadly rise in illness in the population. If more people congregate in public places for some reason, like Christmas shopping in malls, the exposure and the infection rate increases. The public health community attempts to fight this effect by isolation or vaccinations.

The term "Tipping Point" is used when a small change in these ratios results in a sudden and dramatic rise in the disease in a population.

The point of Gladwell's book is that many other social factors show the same behavior. A small change in one of the many control inputs to a social trend can have a dramatic effect on outcomes. He describes the police work on the New York Transit Authority:

The broken-window hypothesis was the inspiration for the cleanup of the subway system conducted by the New York City Transit Authority in the late eighties and early nineties. Why was the Transit Authority so intent on removing graffiti from every car and cracking down on all the people who leaped over turnstiles without paying? Because those two "trivial" problems were thought to be tipping points, also called broken windows, that invited far more serious crimes. It is worth noting that not only did this strategy seem to work - since 1990, felonies have fallen more than fifty per cent - but one of its architects was the then chief of the Transit Police, William Bratton, who was later to take his ideas about preventing crime to the city as a whole when he became head of the New York Police Department.

Just as an aside, William Bratton is the current police chief of Los Angeles, and he was just in the news for the brutal behavior of his police officers against demonstrators in McArthur Park for May Day demonstrations in favor of illegal alien rights. They certainly tipped those guys effectively. Perhaps a bit too much though. But that's beyond the scope of today's show. Back to Iraq.

I have high hopes that once the Iraqi security services are sufficiently manned and trained, Iraq will reach such a tipping point, and the violence will dramatically decrease. I may be naive, but I think I will show on today's podcast how we may have reached that point in some key areas in Iraq, and it is only going to get better if we can just find a way to keep at it.

Last week I was invited to join a blogger's conference call with Brigadier General David D. Phillips, who is the senior military policeman in Iraq, and Deputy Commanding General in charge of training Iraqi police force. He provided an update on the training and equipping of the Iraq Police from an operational viewpoint. I'll play a few excerpts from the call now.

Play clip of Phillips parts 1 & 2.

There's no happy talk there, but it does provide a sober antidote to the non-stop bad news from the conventional media. For another assessment of the work the Iraqi police are doing, listen to this clip from Hugh Hewitt's show last week with his guest Fred Kagan. He was asked by Hugh about what he saw when he was in Iraq last month.

Play clip of Kagen on Police.

The fact is that the Iraqi security forces are getting more and more effective, as the support for them in the U.S. has been getting less and less secure. And that leads to the next segment:

Is Congress Fighting Last Year's War?

It seems to me we have two trajectories in Iraq:

1. The recruiting and training of the Iraqi security forces is increasing the quantity and effectiveness of native Iraqi strength, so that they can take over more and more of the security responsibilities.
Meanwhile:
2. The support for American military commitment is dropping, with more and more calls for withdrawal

If the inclining slope of the former is overtaken by the declining slope of the latter, it's hopeless. If we can accelerate recruiting and training, while stopping the free fall of support on the home front, we can win. Kagen talks about this effect later in the show, when Hugh asks what would happen if we leave before the Iraqis are ready.

Play clip of Kagen on Al Qeada.

The fact is that Congress and their call for redeployment continue to talk about wanting to keep American soldiers out of a civil war, and only fight Al Qeada. In fact, the sectarian violence that the Democrats like to call civil war is dropping like a rock, down 2/3 in a few months. Listen now to General David Petraeus speaking to reporters at the Pentagon. It sure sounds like Congress is debating last year's war, while the enemy and the U.S. military with their Iraqi counterparts, have moved to version 2.0: The Terrorism Edition.

Play clip of Petraeus on Necessary but not Sufficient.

There may be some Pentagon spin to all this. With all the Democrats screaming about a civil war, what if the military is just reclassifying attacks as Al Qeada instead of sectarian in nature? We can't know for sure. But we must understand the nature of our enemy. Listen to this clip from the press conference, when Petraeus describes Iranian involvement in arranging attacks against American soldiers in Karbala.

Play clip of Petraeus in Iranian involvement.

By all means, let's let the Iranians get a nuclear weapon to use against us next. Amazing stuff.

Winning the Information War on the Ground in Iraq

The greatest successes we are having against the enemy are information based. Iraqis are providing solid tips that are leading to the enemy hideouts, and low level enemy captures are leading to higher level targets. The most recent of these was described this week by Major General Caldwell in his press conference from Iraq, on Operation: Rat Trap. He described the capture of a high value target, the information minister for Al Qeada in Iraq. Thanks to the Pentagon Channel for the audio.

Play clip of Caldwell in Aq Qeada in Iraq.

By all means, let's go have tea in Damascus with the Syrian dictator and get to know him better. He must not know that kidnappers operating in Iraq are using his territory for training and financial arrangements. And isn't ironic that this high value target, the Al Qeada Minister of Information, was seized thanks to our own information resources. I sure hope those questioned were read their rights ahead of time, and given access to a lawyer. Not.

Timing the Bush Veto of the Democratic Surrender Plan

Now that Congress has passed the legislation supplemental funding the Iraq war for another 12 months, loaded down as it is with veto-bait, like the troop withdrawal time lines, and the earmarks for sugar beets, fisherman, and political conventions, it has become clear that the Democrats were timing the delivery of the bill to the President, to coincide with the anniversary of President Bush's speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1 of 2003. It was all the talk at the White House press briefing earlier this week, as Martha Raddatz and Dana Perino get into it over what the President did and didn't say four years ago. Listen to the cattiness of the White House press corps. And notice Martha's dig, "Why quibble over something like this?". Because you keep bringing it up, jack ass. Thanks to the White House.gov web site for the audio.

Play clip of Dana Perino vs. Martha Raddatz.

Here is a short clip from his speech at the time where talks about the hard work ahead. And try to find any place where he said, "Mission Accomplished". You won't find it.

Play clip of Dana Perino vs. Martha Raddatz.

The Nature of the Enemy we Face

In a shocking display of who we are up against, Major General William Caldwell appeared on CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to describe one of the most horrendous plans I have ever heard of. So far, only CNN has reported it. That alone is a shocking indictment of the main stream media. If everyone doesn't know about this offense against humanity in Iraq immediately, someone at the Pentagon is not doing their job. Thanks to Little Green Footballs and HotAir for bringing it to my attention, and to the White House Iraq desk for sending me the audio, with the charts you can see on the Wizbang Podcast web site. Listen to this clip from the Situation Room.

Play clip of Blitzer and Caldwell.

By all means lets leave Iraq so that they can sort things out amongst themselves. I'm sure once they have conquered Iraq, they will never want to come for us in downtown Omaha. Perhaps. Or perhaps not.

That's it for now Podcatchers. I'm Charlie Quidnunc reporting from the Wizbang Podcast, today from the downtown Seattle studios overlooking beautiful Puget Sound.