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We’re rapidly closing in on the end of what’s been one of the worst years in recent memory.

Horrific wildfires in California. More than 100,000 killed in a cyclone in Burma. The cataclysmic upheaval of the housing, banking and credit industries. Continued violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Deadly train collision kills 25 in Los Angeles. A bitter presidential election season, the repercussions of which will be felt for years to come. Deadly terror attacks stretching from the West Bank to Mumbai and many cities in-between.

And then there was the loss of leaders of science and industry, entertainment and politics, people who touched our lives. Edmund Hillary. Heath Ledger. William F. Buckley. Arthur C. Clarke. Gary Gygax. Charlton Heston. Yves Saint Laurent. Bo Diddley. George Carlin. Randy Pausch. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Bernie Mac. Isaac Hayes. Paul Newman. Bettie Page. Mark Felt.

2008 is not exactly a year to cherish and look back upon fondly.

Forty years ago today our parents and grandparents were staring down the same dreary prospects at Christmas. The Tet Offensive began in January. American forces were surrounded and taken under siege by North Vietnamese troops at the Khe Sanh combat base. The war claims President Lyndon Johnson as a casaulty, who declares his intent not to run for re-election, which in turn led to Richard Nixon winning the presidency in November. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis April. Two months later Bobby Kennedy was killed by an assassin in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia. The infamous “Heidi game” aired on NBC.

And yet in 1968 there was one notable moment that closed out the year.

It was the moment, forty years ago Wednesday, that astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders circled the Moon in Apollo 8, the first men from the Earth to travel to another planetary body and back. They orbited the Moon 10 times over a 20 hour period and during a live broadcast the three men read from the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis.

It was that moment that likely saved 1968.

We could really use another moment like that to save 2008.

More people live in liberty around the world at this very moment than at any other time in human history. Whatever else you think about President George W. Bush, he is substantially responsible for that truth. A month before the 43rd President departs from the White House, polls show that a majority of Americans don’t think much of George W. Bush, but had his administration not done what was done in the wake of 9-11, how many more innocent American civilians would have been killed by terrorists?

President Bush says nobody could have predicted in the Fall of 2001 that the country would not be hit again for the rest of his presidency, and he says, “It was not a matter of luck.”
This week the President mentioned several plots that were disrupted since the 9-11 attacks including an attempt to bomb fuel tanks at a New York airport, and a plot to blow up jets bound for the East Coast. President Bush says no one knows how many lives may have been saved. He could’ve told of other plots, but chose to talk about only the ones that were widely reported.

How George W. Bush will be remembered after Barack Obama succeeds him next month remains to be seen. In the short term, he will be chastised for the current poor economy, and many critics will choose to overlook the success in Iraq. There’s “plenty to debate about the decisions President Bush has made in the last eight years, but that there can be no debate that on his watch, there wasn’t another terrorist attack on the United States after 9/11. I think history will treat the 43rd U.S. President much better than today’s media which largely has driven the widespread negative regard for George W. Bush.

The Free Life - Helping you stress less, live better and enjoy life.

With the holiday season is full-swing, it’s easy to forget about those who are far from home including armed forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s an opportunity for you and those you know to send a U.S. soldier a holiday postcard. All it takes is a few clicks of a mouse, and it’s entirely free.

You can pick a card at this website and Xerox will print it, and sent it to a soldier currently serving in Iraq. Just visit this website www.LetsSayThanks.com.

The roles women play in society have changed dramatically in the last century, but nowhere has the glass ceiling continued to be broken again and again as in the US military. Since I first enlisted in the military 21 years ago I have seen women begin flying combat missions, serving on ships of the line and not just support vessels and have seen them lead combat missions on the ground in Iraq.

On Friday Lieutenant General Ann Dunwoody accomplished something no other woman has ever done: She earned her fourth star.

Ann Dunwoody was promoted to four-star general in front of a standing room only crowd at the Pentagon Friday morning that erupted in cheers after the Army Chief of Staff, General George Casey, and Dunwoody’s husband, retired Air Force Colonel Craig Brotchie, pinned her stars on her uniform.

“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.”

“It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession,” she added. “So when asked, `Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?’ I say, `Not in my wildest dreams.’

“There is no one more surprised than I — except, of course, my husband. You know what they say, `Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.’”

Congratulations ma’am. Another pane in the glass ceiling shattered.

U.S. troops in Iraq are quietly moving farther and farther away from the country’s population centers. It’s all by design and part of a preliminary security pact we signed with the Iraqi government concerning the future U.S. military presence.

When President Bush ordered the so-called “surge” in 2007, the plan called for U.S. troops to work along side Iraqi forces on the streets and in communities they were responsible to protect. Today, in accordance with a plan engineered by General David Patraeus, our troops are preparing to be out of all Iraqi cities by June of 2009. The risk remains that if the Iraqis aren’t ready to assume the security role our combined troops have performed to date, secular violence may break out again.

If that happens, will then-President Barack Obama ignore the set-back and proceed to remove troops from Iraq, or will he recognize that we must stay awhile longer?

When he takes office in January, Obama will be under tremendous pressure from the left to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible. The anti-war movement will want him to pay no attention to what happens if we just step away. They will insist that there’s nothing more we can do. They will not oppose placing more resources in Afghanistan, but they will not accept a longer occupation of Iraq.

What will Obama do?

Whether or not it accepts the reasons why the United States got into Iraq, the world will not accept our leaving that country in a festering mess that threatens the future stability of the Middle east region.

As much as Obama wants out, and as hard as his cronies pressure him to cut the cord, we have created irreversible obligations in Iraq, and even the anti-war president may not be able to duck them.

Veterans Day means different things to different people. For many Americans it seems that there is no universal sense that the men and women who have worn the uniform are to be regarded in the same way.

Wars and military conflicts that we believe we were right to conduct seem to afford their veterans more honor than wars we opposed. Hence the World War II vet was seen instantly as a noble warrior, whereas, for a long time in this country, and for some still, the Vietnam veteran was not.

In the just-completed presidential campaign opponents to the war in Iraq were quick to say that they support the troops, even while they condemn the war. I have always found this kind of reasoning difficult to understand. Soldiers, sailors and Marines fight wars. That’s their purpose. They are trained to eliminate our enemies in the theater of battle. They have no other mission. That mission is war making. To suggest that we support our troops, but not the reason they exist is ridiculous.

If you oppose a war, don’t send the troops. If you send in the troops, let’s be realistic you intend the war making.

What is much more important to keep in mind is that those who have serve the interests of freedom in all wars over the years, are never in a position to refuse the mission they are given. Their oath is to serve. They may object, and a very few do on occasion, but otherwise, they fight, and place their lives on the line for the rest of us, whenever and wherever they are sent. They are not asked which conflicts they find acceptable. This is what makes these brave men and women honorable. This is why as a nation we hold them in high esteem, regardless of the wars that demanded their sacrifices. This why we they stand tallest among us. This is why we are forever grateful for their service.

On this Veterans Day, therefore, I find no cause to parse history. Every man and woman who has fallen in battle, and all others who offered any portion of their lives to defend what we all hold dear, deserves my respect and appreciation, and they have both. Without distinction, I honor even those who fought to protect our interests around the world, notwithstanding the popularity of those interests here at home.

Thank you for your service to your country.

Few presidents, if any, have ever taken office in our history, facing higher citizen expectations than will Barack Obama. An anxious nation took a chance on this brash, but unproven upstart. Voters obviously liked his message of hope, though they never required him to define it. They accepted his pledge for change, never really knowing what it meant, or how he might accomplish it.

Desiring anything but what had gone before, voters this week elected Barack Obama untested and with perhaps the thinnest of presidential resumes in memory.

When he is inaugurated next January, Obama will be expected to achieve the many incredible things he promised. He will be expected to tame a wild and scary economy. He will be expected to expand tax revenues to reduce government borrowing and expansion of an already burgeoning national debt. He will be expected to restore stability and prosperity to the middle class. He will be expected to make affordable health care available to every American. He will be expected to efficiently and quickly end the unpopular military occupation in Iraq. He will be expected to win the war on terror and to guarantee that we will never experience another 9-11. He will be expected to make a college education available to all Americans who desire one. He will be expected to bring new respect and enthusiasm for U.S. interests around the world.

Some Americans even expect him to pay their burdensome mortgages, and fill their tanks with gas. In short, Barack Obama was elected because he promised to fix everything that makes us anxious.

The question is will he deliver? Can he deliver?

The euphoria of his historic election will soon wear off, and Barack Obama will soon discover that sitting at the desk where the buck stops, is a far cry from what he had imagined out on the campaign trail, where words come easy. The American people will have an epiphany too. Barack Obama is not the Messiah.

Republican Vice Presidential Sarah Palin likes talking about Joe Six Pack. Both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama spent a lot of time Wednesday night talking about Joe the Plumber.

Unfortunately, with our economy in the dumps those are pretty much the only two Joes we hear very much about these days.

Too bad there aren’t any more debates because here’s one other Joe that both candidates - and the American people as a whole - should probably spend a little bit more time talking about.

GI Joe.

Here’s something about you that you won’t want to hear:

American voters who on November 4th will be hiring a president, senators, and representatives to run the world’s only true superpower democracy, are grossly ignorant. Politicians like to flatter voters with statements about how smart we are, and how we truly understand how to decipher their messages and make good choices, but that simply isn’t the truth.

By every measure social scientists have devised, American voters are spectacularly uninformed. Though we adamantly insist otherwise, social scientists know we don’t follow politics, let alone understand political parties, lawmaking, our courts, or foreign affairs. Few among us really understand how our government works.

According to an August 2006 Zogby poll, only two in five Americans know that we have three branches of government and can actually name them. In 2006 a National Geographic poll revealed that six in 10 young people (ages 18 to 24) can’t find Iraq on a map. Political scientists Michael Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, surveyed a wide variety of polls measuring American knowledge of history. They found that fewer than half of us know who Karl Marx was or which war the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought in. Even worse, they found that just 49 percent of Americans know that the only country ever to use a nuclear weapon in a war is their own.

Yes, we are magnificent in our lack of pertinent knowledge when it comes to politics, history, and world affairs and yet, in a few weeks we will deem ourselves qualified to make world class decisions about our government.

Despite substantial advancements in information technology, and despite a society that enjoys much higher education levels than in previous generations, we voters still don’t seem to have a clue. In 1940, only 60% of all Americans were educated beyond the eighth grade. Today, the majority of Americans have a high school diploma, and many have at least one or more years of college. Yet we have no greater understanding of the world around us, or the of the pressing issues of our time than our less educated grand parents.

Not only is this is an indictment of American education, but it is also an embarrassing statement about our competence as voters.

Making things altogether worse is the finding that most Americans get their political news from television, which means the depth of their knowledge is measured in six-second sound bites. Consider this if you think you’re ready to vote.

Today’s the last hurrah for the men and women of the 81st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, who wrapped up their pre-deployment training today at Ft. McCoy with a send-off ceremony. After that they’ll be packing up their gear and getting on planes and headed east to the sandbox for another 12 months.

The brigade’s clenched fist is the Spokane-based 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry, which has armories all across Eastern Washington including Pullman, Moses Lake, Pasco, Wenatchee and right here in town.

Now for the unitiated, the infantryman is the guy that holds the key ground on the battlefield. In combat you’re either Infantry or you’re Infantry support.

Now if you’re a tanker, cannon cocker, bulk fuel specialist or supply clerk, before you get your dander up, for those of you that haven’t read this blog before (that means all of you except for my bosses, my wife and a handful of friends of mine) I make that claim because for most of my adult life I was an infantryman. I was an infantryman in the Marine Corps. I was a Mechanized Infantryman in the Army Guard.

There’s a special, albeit dark and cold, place in my heart for 1-161. It was my battalion and Moses Lake was my armory. Many of the guys over at Ft. McCoy right now spending their last days and hours in the United States before going to Iraq are my friends who I pushed hot steel downrange with last go-around.

At first when I heard they were heading back I had survivor’s guilt. I was neck deep in the you-can’t-say-that-in-your-blog with the battalion last time around. I spent a year camped out in the Green Zone running combat patrols outside the wire with them. I was there for the IED strikes, rocket and mortar attacks, firefights and for the memorial services.

I did my time. I did my part. I pushed my fair share of bullets downrange.

I shot this video below the last time we were in-country. Many of the guys in this video are out of the Guard now. Many of them are going back to Iraq within a matter of days. While I’m glad I’m not going (My wife is glad, too) with them deep down inside I feel guilty because I’m not.

Good luck Highlanders. Unleash hell and return home with honor. We’ll have plenty of beer chillin’ and BBQ grillin’ for you guys when you get home.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Carlo E. Alfonso, 23, of Spokane, Wash., died on Aug. 26 of injuries sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in Sadr City, Iraq. He was assigned to the 40th Engineer Battalion, 2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany.

NOTE: Alfonso’s wife, Rosemarie, contacted us last week with the news of her husband’s death. Alfonso -pictured on the left above - is scheduled to return home later this week for his funeral and memorial service. Full story on SPC. Alfonso’s death here.

Last night we ran a story about local Guardsmen getting ready to head off to Iraq. The 81st Brigade of the Washington Army National Guard is heading to Camp Anaconda north of Baghdad for their second combat tour in four years.

The story focused on one man, Captain Clayton Colliton, who will be returning along with the brigade as a company commander in the 81st Brigade. The story was one of pride of a son - Clayton - in service to his country and pride of a father - former Spokane City Councilman Jeff Colliton - who served in the military himself and has watched his sons all participate in a family business that goes back to the time of his great-grandfather’s service.

Here’s the rest of his story because you see in some ways Clayton Colliton saved my life one day back in October of 2004.

It was early October and my platoon - 1st Platoon Charlie Company 1st of the 161st Infantry - was heading out on a combat patrol down to Jisr Diyala, a backwater suburb a dozen klicks south of Baghdad, Iraq. I can’t use the words I’d like to describe Jisr Diyala because this is, after all, a family-friendly blog.

I was in an armored personnel carrier - an M113 - at the tail end of the platoon column. SPC Erik Bombard was the driver, SGT James Roush was the track commander. Also in the track were SPC Noel Marshall, our platoon medic, SSG Kurt Hosman and SPC Jesse Fierro among others.

We were driving out of the Green Zone and had just left the 14 July Bridge checkpoint at the southern end of our little slice of heaven in downtown Baghdad and were heading down a street that paralleled that Karrada Street shopping district when a drain plug popped out the bottom of the track. Unfortunately that drain plug was the only thing holding in all the hydraulic fluid for our track and, unfortunately, we needed hydraulic fluid to control two things: Our Steering and Our Brakes.

Imagine Erik Bombard’s surprise when our track started drifting into oncoming traffic and he found out the hard way he had neither. He had the steering controls cranked all the way to the right and still the track was slewing to the left.

Suddenly the controls responded to Bombard’s commands and the track veered right. Hard Right.

I was sitting in the back with the rest of the guys in Kurt Hosman’s squad, oblivious to what was going on when suddenly the track crashed, nearly toppling over on its side, with chunks of bricks and mortar raining in from the open top troop hatch. As you can see from the picture at the top of the post, we had crashed into a brick wall.

SGT Roush was ejected from his position - where that open hatch is atop the track - and thrown about a dozen feet into the middle of the street. We later joked that we should file charges against him for abandoning his post but he suffered a tour-ending skull fracture; his injuries were no laughing matter.

Here’s the scary thing. Our track’s crash knocked all power to the vehicle including our radios. We were at the tail end of the platoon column and the rest of the platoon didn’t notice we had crashed and kept driving down the road out of sight. We were a handful of guys, one critically injured and needing to go to the hospital, stuck with an immobilized armored personnel carrier and out of communications with everyone else.

We were in the middle of Baghdad and on our own.

Doc Marshall started treating Roush while the rest of us started getting ourselves organized around our dead track. There wasn’t much more we could do except hope an American unit would come by and give us a hand.

Within a few minutes a column of gun trucks came up the road headed toward the Green Zone. It was Lieutenant Clayton Colliton and “Stetson” - our battalion’s Scout Platoon. Lt. Colliton got out of his Humvee, we gave him a quick rundown on what was going on. While his Scouts got out and helped provide local security and assisted Doc Marshall with treating Roush, Colliton got on the battalion net to let our platoon know where we were and what happened.

Now if you ask him today Captain Colliton probably won’t recall this seemingly insignificant event. All he did, he might say, was use his radio to help out a squad of grunts that had broken contact with the rest of its platoon.

But being out there on our own with a damaged track and a wounded soldier and no radio to this day I’m not sure what would have happened if Colliton and his Scouts hadn’t been driving by.

So thank you for your help Captain Collliton. You guys stay safe up there at Anaconda.

Scouts Out.

Governor Tim Kaine (D-VA) has been appointed the Prime Minister of Fantasyland after he said on FoxNews that Obama’s request for a Russian cease fire in Georgia had been complied with. Watch the short clip below to see the madness firsthand.

The keywords there? “[C]omplied with.”

Governer Kaine, seriously, lets recap a little Russian history for you and the rest of the people of Fantasyland.

The Russians are the guys who beat back Napeolon’s Armies from the Gates of Moscow.

The Russians are the guys who beat back Hitler’s Armies from the Gates of Moscow.

The Russians survived the reign of the Czars.

The Russians survived the reign of the Communists.

In short: The Russians don’t respect words. The Russians respect action.

No one, not NATO, not the Americans, no one is in a position to take action against the resurgent Russian Bear right now. With the Americans fully committed to a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan there is only one option available, other than tersely-worded statements, open to us to stop the Russian advance into Georgia.

At this point the Americans have a near empty quiver with one and only arrow left, and I don’t think anyone is willing to use that arrow, because it’s that “special” arrow that no one has used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Russians know this and they are demonstrating they are still a force to be reckoned with. Relegated to the political sidelines since the collapse of the Soviet Union, they are taking this opportunity to show the world they aren’t a washed up former world power.

The Russians are showing us they have the might, the wherewithal and the backbone to act where they want, when they want and how they want, no matter what the freshman Senator from Illinois and Democratic candidate for president says.

The Russians respect deeds, not words Governor Kaine. The Russians aren’t going to respect Sen. Obama – or the United States – unless we’re ready and willing to back up our mighty press releases with every last arrow in our quiver.

  It’s fitting my very first blog would be about something that I have not be able to stop talking about this week… a backseat ride with the Blue Angels.

   Thousands of hard working soldiers, sailors and marines work aroud the F-A-18 Hornet every day but very few of them ever get to fly in one.

  That’s why I felt so privileged to have the opportunity to board Blue Angel Seven at Fairchild A.F.B.

  For years I’ve been thrilled to sit back by the boom of a K-C 135 and watch Fairchild’s air tanker’s refuel thirsty fighters like the Hornet… this was my chance to see where all that gas was going.

  My pilot, Lt. Frank Weissner of Atlanta, Georgia whisked me into the sky with a vertical climb that leveled off at seven thousand feet… then it was north into the mountains of extreme eastern Washington where the Lt. tickled me with with the low level, high speed flying he would use to evade enemy radar overseas. In fact all of the Blue Angels pilots are fresh from the battle field or heading there as soon as their two year duty on the air show circut is over.

  The flight wasn’t easy… I tried to avoid throwing up, passsing out and begging for mercy as Weissner wrapped the Hornet around in turns that topped out at 7.9 g’s.

  Back on the ground, as I took off the soggy helmet, I thanked the young Georgian for the ride of my life and then wondered how this 25 year old and his fellow aviators manage to do what they do.

  Every day, and more often at night, in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan, pilots like Weissner pull the same g’s…. doing the same type of flying from their cramped cockpits… only in those air shows there are people waiting 24/7 to shoot missles at them.  In an instant Weissner’s undoubtedly proud parents could become very sad ones… and it happens to the parents of our soldiers and Marines as well.

   I used to think I would have made a good fighter pilot but after my ride with Weissner I know I only have a fraction of what it really takes.

A new analysis from the Associated Press’ top reporters in Iraq. Very interesting read. The irony is the fact that Sen. McCain’s strategy worked, plays into Sen. Obama’s view that now is the time we can start withdrawing troops. Sen. McCain, too, has said the reason we’re able to talk about drawing down troops is because of the success. But mark my words, if we start withdrawing even before an ‘Obama Administration’ were to take office, Sen. Obama will get the credit, even though he probably shouldn’t.

Curious about your thoughts after you read it:

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Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost

By ROBERT BURNS and ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press WritersSat Jul 26, 10:45 PM ET

The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost. Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.

This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press this past week there are early indications that senior leaders of al-Qaida may be considering shifting their main focus from Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the AP on Thursday that the insurgency as a whole has withered to the point where it is no longer a threat to Iraq’s future.

“Very clearly, the insurgency is in no position to overthrow the government or, really, even to challenge it,” Crocker said. “It’s actually almost in no position to try to confront it. By and large, what’s left of the insurgency is just trying to hang on.”

Shiite militias, notably the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have lost their power bases in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. An important step was the routing of Shiite extremists in the Sadr City slums of eastern Baghdad this spring — now a quiet though not fully secure district.

Al-Sadr and top lieutenants are now in Iran. Still talking of a comeback, they are facing major obstacles, including a loss of support among a Shiite population weary of war and no longer as terrified of Sunni extremists as they were two years ago.

Despite the favorable signs, U.S. commanders are leery of proclaiming victory or promising that the calm will last.

The premature declaration by the Bush administration of “Mission Accomplished” in May 2003 convinced commanders that the best public relations strategy is to promise little, and couple all good news with the warning that “security is fragile” and that the improvements, while encouraging, are “not irreversible.”

Iraq still faces a mountain of problems: sectarian rivalries, power struggles within the Sunni and Shiite communities, Kurdish-Arab tensions, corruption. Any one of those could rekindle widespread fighting.

But the underlying dynamics in Iraqi society that blew up the U.S. military’s hopes for an early exit, shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, have changed in important ways in recent months.

Systematic sectarian killings have all but ended in the capital, in large part because of tight security and a strategy of walling off neighborhoods purged of minorities in 2006.

That has helped establish a sense of normalcy in the streets of the capital. People are expressing a new confidence in their own security forces, which in turn are exhibiting a newfound assertiveness with the insurgency largely in retreat.

Statistics show violence at a four-year low. The monthly American death toll appears to be at its lowest of the war — four killed in action so far this month as of Friday, compared with 66 in July a year ago. From a daily average of 160 insurgent attacks in July 2007, the average has plummeted to about two dozen a day this month. On Wednesday the nationwide total was 13.

Beyond that, there is something in the air in Iraq this summer.

In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.

Now a moment has arrived for the Iraqis to try to take those positive threads and weave them into a lasting stability.

The questions facing both Americans and Iraqis are: What kinds of help will the country need from the U.S. military, and for how long? The questions will take on greater importance as the U.S. presidential election nears, with one candidate pledging a troop withdrawal and the other insisting on staying.

Iraqi authorities have grown dependent on the U.S. military after more than five years of war. While they are aiming for full sovereignty with no foreign troops on their soil, they do not want to rush. In a similar sense, the Americans fear that after losing more than 4,100 troops, the sacrifice could be squandered.

U.S. commanders say a substantial American military presence will be needed beyond 2009. But judging from the security gains that have been sustained over the first half of this year — as the Pentagon withdrew five Army brigades sent as reinforcements in 2007 — the remaining troops could be used as peacekeepers more than combatants.

As a measure of the transitioning U.S. role, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond says that when he took command of American forces in the Baghdad area about seven months ago he was spending 80 percent of his time working on combat-related matters and about 20 percent on what the military calls “nonkinetic” issues, such as supporting the development of Iraqi government institutions and humanitarian aid.

Now Hammond estimates those percentage have been almost reversed. For several hours one recent day, for example, Hammond consulted on water projects with a Sunni sheik in the Radwaniyah area of southwest Baghdad, then spent time with an Iraqi physician/entrepreneur in the Dora district of southern Baghdad — an area, now calm, that in early 2007 was one of the capital’s most violent zones.

“We’re getting close to something that looks like an end to mass violence in Iraq,” says Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus on war strategy. Biddle is not ready to say it’s over, but he sees the U.S. mission shifting from fighting the insurgents to keeping the peace.

Although Sunni and Shiite extremists are still around, they have surrendered the initiative and have lost the support of many ordinary Iraqis. That can be traced to an altered U.S. approach to countering the insurgency — a Petraeus-driven move to take more U.S. troops off their big bases and put them in Baghdad neighborhoods where they mixed with ordinary Iraqis and built a new level of trust.

Army Col. Tom James, a brigade commander who is on his third combat tour in Iraq, explains the new calm this way:

“We’ve put out the forest fire. Now we’re dealing with pop-up fires.”

It’s not the end of fighting. It looks like the beginning of a perilous peace.

Maj. Gen. Ali Hadi Hussein al-Yaseri, the chief of patrol police in the capital, sees the changes.

“Even eight months ago, Baghdad was not today’s Baghdad,” he says.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — Robert Burns is AP’s chief military reporter, and Robert Reid is AP’s chief of bureau in Baghdad. Reid has covered the war from his post in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Burns, based in Washington, has made 21 reporting trips to Iraq; on his latest during July, Burns spent nearly three weeks in central and northern Iraq, observing military operations and interviewing both U.S. and Iraqi officers.