I agree with your letter. But other than the lie that we were told about the surge, is this any difference than buying allies like Turkey, Pacistan, England, Georgia with dollars.

Mr. Smith, how DARE you tell the truth about the miraculuous surge! Everyone KNOWS that St. Petraeus has discovered the magic formula to eternal peace in the Middle East! All we have to do is pay off the local mob bosses and build walls throughout the entire city in a form of institutionalized ethnic cleansing, how simple is that? Of course, that means the American enforcers can NEVER LEAVE under this formulation, but hey, we have "peace," right?

But our President and his people will continue to lie and give false information at the expense of the American soldier. Many people who understand the past of that area and the culture of those people know that the surge has not worked but those who are so willing to sit back and believe a few will never understand or realize the impact of the lies and of course many of these people don't have family members in uniform to really check into the truth

The war in Iraq is costing 10 billion dollars a month. We confirmed there are no weapons of mass destruction, we got Sadam. Invading a country is not an efficient way to fight a war on terrorism.

Lets declare victory (we have achieved all or objectives) and fight and win the war to get our country financially solvent, energy independent through nuclear and other alternatives, save social security, improve education. This is the war we ought to be fighting and winning.

No question the strategy in Iraq has many fronts. You've described one that isn't talked about a lot.

But look at the numbers: $30,000 /month? That's a pittance in the Iraq war budget, even if you multiply dozes, even hundreds, of times. The cost of combating that particular tribe, while we don't have the details, would probably be much higher, just in dollars, let alone blood (theirs and ours).

What's more, it's obviously a short-term tactic. The more successful we and the Iraqi gov't are over time, the less need we'll have of some tactics.

In the end, the fact that other facets of the Coalition's plan are also helping does not mean that the surge was not also a key component in the improvements.

What ever works! Paying them not to kill our troops and themselves seems to be better than getting those deployed to Iraq killed.

Do the math. For $10 BILLION dollars a month, we could pay off 33,333 tribal leaders. Are there 33,333 tribal leaders in Iraq? If so, why not stop the war today?

How very foolish the foolish are when they hear a story and then don't take the time to do the math. How very foolish they are when they equate $30,000 a month as a bribe. Do we "bribe each and every police department in the United States or do we "pay" police departments a large sum of money to "keep us safe" from criminals? Does that mean that we're bribing police to "bribe" criminals?

Come on people, use your math skills that you learned back in second grade. I was asked how many piano-tuners practiced in Salt Lake City and was only allowed math to figure it out. Even a second grader, if he thinks logically, given a typical wage, typical costs to have a piano tuned, and typical expenses for the piano tuner can figure that out. Surely those of you who have benefited from higher education can see past "yellow" journalism and conclude that one more "reporter" failed to be honest.