Anbar Dividend

... is also the result of long, hard bloody work in Anbar, by and large not reflected in news reports but brought to us periodically by embedded bloggers such as Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, and now Bill Ardolino.

USA Today reports that recruiting for Iraqi forces is up in Anbar. Via Powerline.

The U.S. military is reporting a dramatic and unexpected increase in the number of police recruits in Anbar province, the center of Sunni insurgent activity in Iraq.
In the past two weeks, more than 1,000 applicants have sought police jobs in Ramadi, the provincial capital. Eight hundred signed up last month in Ramadi, said Army Maj. Thomas Shoffner, operations officer for the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

Those figures compare with only "a few dozen" recruits in September, the U.S. military said.

Reports have been emerging for sometime that the tribal leaders in Anbar are tired of al-Qaeda and want to play ball. As Powerline notes, the news in recent weeks that Bush is making a go of it has to have had an effect. And perhaps, the Sunnis have finally done the math and figured out that in chaos and open warfare, they lose.