"America is finally winning the war in Iraq"

Some might find that headline debatable.

In fact, that's what it is - a topic for an actual debate. For the motion: Frederick Kagan, General Jack Keane (ret.) Against the motion: Charles Ferguson, Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Keane and Kagan are generally credited as "architects of the surge".

Ferguson is a millionaire who made a propaganda film about Iraq:

When a guy hits it big in software and then he sells his company to Microsoft for more than $100 million and then he decides that he wants to start making movies, there is a tendency to think well maybe here’s another rich guy with a vanity project on his mind, except that the movie that our next panelist made, his name is Charles Ferguson, it’s a documentary on the US experience in Iraq. It premiered last year and was almost universally reviewed as superb and serious and ultimately became a contender for an Oscar award. Though he did not oppose the invasion of Iraq initially, the title of his film tells you where he stands now, very quickly, it is called, No End in Sight.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind has held the post of Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom and Defense Secretary, a combination that, in this country the only figure I can think of to have comparably held the positions of state and defense would be George Marshall. You can tell me, Fred, if I’m wrong on that. He is a friend of the United States as a member of the Conservative Party who’s been in politics for 40 years, a supporter of many American policies and the special relationship, but when it came to Iraq, he said no. He was against going in, he is against staying in now, and he will be arguing against the motion, Sir Malcolm Rifkind.