The enemy will try to herd us into their traps, and likely many of us will be killed before it ends. Already they have been blowing up bridges to restrict our movements. Entire buildings are rigged with explosives. They have rockets, mortars, and bombs hidden in places they know we are likely to cross, or to seek cover. They will use human shields and force people to drive bombs at us.

They will use their favorite of all weapons, the camera, and make it look like we are ravaging the city and that they are defeating us. For they have understood from the beginning what we learned almost too late: this is a political war and political war is media war.

By the time this dispatch is published, we will be inside Baqubah, and we will be killing them.

Our jets will drop bombs. Helicopters will cover us and medevac our wounded and killed. Artillery will be firing, and our tanks moving in. And Humvees. And Strykers. Our people will capture commanding positions and cut off escape routes. The idea this time is not to chase al Qaeda out, but to trap and kill them head-on, or in ambushes, or while they sleep. This time, when they are wounded, they will be unable to go to hospitals without being captured, and so their wounds will fester and some will die painfully. It will be horrible for al Qaeda. Horror they sowed and tonight horror they will reap.

They will get no rest. No one is asking for surrender, but because we are who we are, if they surrender, they will be taken.

Our soldiers will go in on foot and fight from house to house. They will shoot rockets into enemy hiding spaces. Our snipers will shoot them in their heads and chests. All the talk of what should or could be done will smash head-on against the searing reality of combat.

Nothing is certain. I am here and have been all year. We are in trouble, but we have a great general. The only one, I have long believed, who can lead the way out of this morass. Iraq is not hopeless. Iraq can stand again, but first it must cast off these demons. Or kill them.

And while the battle rages, the prayer card will be in my pocket.

Be not afraid. I go before you always;
Come follow me, and I will give you rest.

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