IBD Editorial:
Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the U.S.-Iraqi efforts to pacify Baghdad, said border crossings by returning refugees numbered 46,030 in October alone. He attributed the large numbers to the "improving security situation" resulting from the successful military surge orchestrated by Gen. David Petraeus.
"We are receiving tremendous numbers of displaced families at the borders of Syria and Jordan," says Maj. Gen. Mohsen Abdul Hassan, head of Iraq's department of border enforcement. "We have difficulties dealing with the large numbers. There are long lines of vehicles."
Convoys of Iraqis wanting to return and willing to drive themselves from Damascus to Baghdad are being organized by the Iraqi embassy in Damascus.
Syria has absorbed the lion's share of Iraqi refugees during the war. But the Times of London reports that as a result of the Iraqi return, "Saida Zaynab, the Damascus neighborhoods once dominated by many of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, is almost deserted. Apartment prices are plummeting and once-crowded shops and buses are half empty."
Hussein Ali Saleh, director of the National Theatre in Baghdad, stages plays for refugees in Damascus. He reports that the al-Najum theatre was filled with 400 Iraqis on an average night. Lately, barely 50 show up.
"In the last month, 60% of the Iraqis I know have returned," he told the Times. "The situation has changed completely. They all want to go back. Even my own family back in Baghdad is telling me the situation is much better."
"There is a large movement of people going back to Iraq. We are doing rapid research on this," added a spokesman for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.
But no research is needed to confirm that the surge has worked. The Iraqi people feel safer than ever as al-Qaida is pushed out of Baghdad and outlying provinces, and the number of car bombings and civilian casualties has dropped sharply.
Even the New York Times, which like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had editorially proclaimed the war to be lost, reported Tuesday that people in Baghdad now move freely without fear, even at night. People feel free to move between Shiite and Sunni areas for everyday routines such as work, shopping and school.
Just six short months ago, the mostly Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah in western Baghdad was one of the centers of al-Qaida in Iraq operations. Some days there were as many as a dozen car bombings and shootings. Few walked the streets.
Today, as the Associated Press reports: "Twilight brings traffic jams to the main shopping district of this once-affluent corner of Baghdad, and hundreds of people stroll past well-stocked vegetable stands, bakeries and butcher shops." Women shop in its reopened stores, and men drink tea in sidewalk cafes.
Because we refused to leave, the Iraqi people are choosing to come home.
