In case you missed the good news...

Over at L'Ombre de l'Olivier I read that 'Sunni Iraqi chiefs have agreed to join forces to fight al-Qaeda'. I think I must have missed this good news whilst the world was focused on that report!

The Reuters (Yahoo) article by Mussab Al-Khairalla and Peter Graff isnt exactly falling over itself to celebrate this.

"Sattar al-Buzayi, a Sunni sheikh from Anbar province who has emerged in recent weeks as a leader of a tribal alliance against Osama Bin Ladens followers, said he and about 15 other sheikhs had offered their cooperation to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

"We agreed to cooperate," Buzayi told Reuters. "We haven't agreed to anything specific, but we agreed to cooperate."

"The United States says its 30,000 troops in Anbar -- by far the deadliest province for U.S. forces in Iraq -- cannot defeat the insurgency on their own. ....Senior commanders say they have been delighted by recent developments in Ramadi"

From l'Ombre:

"... the negativity - 30,000 troops cannot defeat the insurgency on their own. Well duh! of course they can't. Practically no one has ever defeated any terrorist group or insurgency without significant buy in from the local populace. The only regime to have been successful in the regard is Syria - but then the destruction of a major town (Hama) and the killing of an estimated 25,000 people (almost all of its inhabitants) is not something that the US has felt like doing in Iraq. ...That negativity continues as the report concludes with a laundry list of completely unrelated incidents in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq"

The information used is pretty selective.

In the BBC version

"15 of the 18 tribes in Ramadi "have sworn to fight those who are killing Sunnis and Shiites", and had put together "20,000 young men". Another sheikh at the meeting, Sattar al-Buzayi, told Reuters that the tribal leaders had decided to take the fight to the Islamist militants who control parts of Ramadi and Anbar province.

"We have now entered a real battle. It's either us or them," he said.

'Proud to kill'

"We just want to live like everyone else. We're sick of all this bloodshed," said one Ramadi resident, voicing anger at al-Qaeda.

All great news but I only really found the BBC report after googling 'Sattar al-Buzayi'. In the Struggle for Iraq section of the BBCs website today its main focus is still the Bush report plus as much negativity as possible features prominently in the discussion and news pieces. I cant find this glimmer of hope anywhere in there ....

This story was at least picked up by Brownie at Harrys Place a week or so ago who notes the importance and comments:

"After 3-and-a-half years, it seems I can finally add my name to the list of those supporting the "resistance". That's those "resisting" the fanaticism of death cult zealots who use their opposition to "occupation" as cover for their own imperialist tendencies"