In any case we finally got it right.  I think the first one to get it right was General Odierno who not only began to use proper encounter insurgency but began to insist that all the units followed the same principles and the same policies before that one division at one brigade might be taking a very hard line and another brigade like the original brigade or the division that the General Patria sat up in Mosul is really reaching out to the Iraqis trying to find people to work with meanwhile another division or another brigade is there rounding up every military age male in Iraq and throwing them into bad conditions and, of course, Patria’s stand with a [IB] elect and with the help of a lot of very good people has really done a great deal.  Fortunately, we now have- I think it’s a very good thing we have dates to leave, dates can be changed but the, I think my feeling is once you get these dates and you start a process of leaving it’s more likely to accelerate than slow down, it creates its own momentum.  So, I think it is very likely that we will follow these dates August of next year to have our combat troops is gone and then by the end of the following year everybody out.

Now, in truth not everybody will be out.  First of all, one other things that I heard yesterday, the army is doing is turning combat brigades into advisory brigades so you’ll find these people, these advisors are large numbers in unit and well trained and able if requested by the Iraqis to take on military operations and for a long, long time the Iraqi military will need intelligence support, logistical support, and critically air support.  They’re getting some F-16s and take some time to train pilots but perhaps just as important and more important attack helicopters and training helicopter pilots and so forth is a more complicated process, so I think we will have people around there all the time.  Now, the violence is clearly down that’s the good news.  I see several reasons for this, of course, some are obvious.  The switch in a [PH] landbar, thanks to General Odierno and others.  The sons of Iraq who realized that the more dangerous enemy was Al Qaeda that’s pretty obvious.  Secondly, some thing- some people talk about but not too much.  The fact is that in Bagdad at least and to some degree elsewhere, the ethnic cleansing was between Sunni and Shia Arabs was mostly completed.  If you look at maps of Bagdad before and after the violence that follows Samarra bombing, you’ll see a great differences, there are hardly any Sunnis east of the city except for the religious- around the religious shrine in [IB] and if you look west of the city it’s a bit more mix but it’s heavily Sunni Arab and many of the Shia have had to go west of the river because the west part of the city then merges into Anbar province which is solidly Sunni.

So, you know, sadly the violence is down which was good but most of the people had already been killed or driven out.  Obviously, bit by bit and now to a great extent the Iraqi forces are much better trained, the government has become much more assertive.  Maliki the prime minister made some gambles which he pulled off was good bit of American help going into Basra and other city and succeeded in getting rid of the militias.  As I say with the violence going down I think national feeling has resurged to a degree.  I also think as I was involved a long time in ending the civil war in Lebanon and I- my conclusion then was when you get that degree of what do you want to call it civil war ethic cleansing, whatever you wanna call it, this violent internal conflict, it’s a little bit like a forest fire when it reaches a certain level you can’t put it out anymore, you can only contain it and let it burn itself out and I think that’s what happen in Lebanon and you can see subsequently when there have been crisis that the Lebanese are very [IB] to get into that kind of violence again and I- to a lesser degree I would say in Iraq.  You see that a lot of Iraqis were sickened by the degree of violence and very [IB] to get involved in it, get involved in it again.  So, there are, of course, the central government is working, is working better.