WHEN DID THE ANBAR AWAKENING START?

I previously posted that the Awakening was reported to have started on Sept. 14, 2006 but it seems as if it may have started long before that. TRex at Firedoglake pointed out an interesting article by Patrick Graham, a Canadian reporter, in Macleans. Here's what Graham says on page 5 of the article:

By 2005, the insurgents and their families, whom I had gotten to know, were fighting al-Qaeda as well as attacking the Americans.

I realize that this is far from the current alliance of convenience we have with the Sunni sheiks in Anbar but it has what I think is the crucial component: the Iraqi Sunnis turn against Al Qaeda. To the extent that Iraq has anything to do with the WOT, and I don't think it has much, this is an important development for our own security.

Graham notes our dysfunctional elite on page 6:

The discussion in Washington and New York has always drowned out the reality of Iraq. One of the terrifying aspects of the war is the monumental failure of analysis and action on the part of America’s political, military, journalistic and even business elites.

I think this is a bit overdrawn because some of the elites did warn about the problems we would face in Iraq but our leading newspapers, especially the NY Times and WaPo, badly let us down. As Atrios has put it, the Kool Kidz blew it.