There has been much chatter leading up to the President's speech tonight about Iraq.

Many people are noting what was said by certain politicians and other noteables in 2007 regarding the Surge and comparing it to their current opinions.

My favorite quote from 2007 went something like this:

"When historians write about the Iraq war they will write about the invasion, the Battle of Fallujah and OUR VICTORY in the Surge."

Those words were written on a piece of poster board in the tactical operations center of the 1-28 Infantry 'The Black Lions' in the West Rashid district of Baghdad.  I saw them in May of 2007.

My second favorite is this rant by Glenn Greenwald.  [Scroll down to (2) where he starts talking about me.  He's responding to this post. ]

I witnessed the Surge in person.  I was the first reporter to see the Anbar Awakening spread past Ramadi down the Euphrates river valley.  I spent a month in Baghdad with an infantry battalion building safe neighborhoods and capturing Jaish al Mahdi leaders.

The Surge was not something I watched on TV.  I saw it with my own eyes and through my own camera lens.

During those months I encoutered two suicide truck bombs, dodged machine gun fire, should have been killed by enemy mortar fire and got shot at a few more times.  I honestly do not know how I lived.  I caught an intestinal virus from the sewage in Baghdad and met an Iraqi man whose stand against Al Qaida was equal parts "High Noon" and "Walking Tall."  I lived down in the dirt with Soldiers who volunteered to fight what had become a very unpopular war, Soldiers who were being told they had failed.

When I made it back to the US it was like I had entered an alternate universe where the facts on the ground were denied vehemently by those who had staked a position in favor of failure.

Joining the fray, I penned articles and editorials like this one showing how despite losing on the ground in Iraq, the insurgents were winning inside the Beltway and in major media.

I was back in Baghdad in 2008 and the changes were undeniable.

Those months in Iraq are something I will always carry with me and I will never forget who wanted to win and who said we had already lost.

I also know that the American people are not stupid, they will remember as well.
 

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