The roads they're about to travel are hot spots for insurgents, or AIF in military parlance, an acronym for anti-Iraqi forces.

NPR: Sectarian Killings Divide Integrated Baghdad Suburb

"Marines responded to the attacks with overwhelming small arms and mortar fire, as well as close-air support, killing 36 anti-Iraqi forces, " the military said in a written statement.

CNN: Basra?bombs kill at least 68 Iraqis

And owing to their sudden devotion to stability, Obama's surrogates tell us the Syrians and Iranians will support the new anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian Iraqi democracy and even protect it after the US withdraws its forces from the country.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Soldiers of peace

The progress of the Iraqi forces is especially clear when the recent anti-terrorist operations in Tal Afar are compared with last year's assault in Fallujah.

NPR: Bush Reaffirms Iraq Strategy

On Friday, Iraqi security forces arrested four men in Mosul in connection with anti-Christian attacks.

CNN: Christian families flee Mosul after death threats

The Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella group of all the significant anti-Saddam forces inside Iraq, has consistently requested Administration assistance for operations on the ground in Iraq ranging from the delivery of humanitarian assistance and information-gathering to military and technical training and lethal military drawdown.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Key Legislators Urge Bush Team to Help Liberate Iraq

This amounts to post facto disenfranchisement of the Iraqi voters whose turnout of over 60 percent - in the face of threats by anti-democratic forces that voting would be deemed a capital offense - powerfully testified to their desire to exercise the right enjoyed by no others in the Mideast except Israelis: to have a real say in their government and future.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Who lost Iraq?