One of the reasons progress has been made is the increasing courage of the Iraqi people to reject violence from their neighborhoods, work more closely with security forces, and indeed even place themselves in harm's way to help secure their communities.

One sign of that progress is Iraqi and Coalition forces now find and clear more than half of all roadside bombs across Iraq more than 60% in some areas. This progress is due to improving technology, better training by the Iraqi Security Force, and most of all it is because of the help of brave Iraqis, who are assisting our forces .

Iraqi citizens are not just reporting IEDs, but also phoning in tips, walking into local Joint Security Stations to provide actionable intelligence, and working with their security forces in ways not seen a year ago. They are directly enabling progress we are seeing in operation Phantom Phoenix.

On Sunday, Coalition forces operating east of Tikrit captured an al-Qaeda operative who facilitated weapons and munitions purchases, moved foreign fighters, and also acted as an interrogator at a terrorist kidnapping site in the area.

On Monday, Coalition forces captured a terrorist in Baqubah associated with a suicide bomb network in Diyala.

The collective weight of operations like these and countless others continues to disrupt the terrorist networks and improve security conditions for Iraq's citizens. One small aspect of that progress is re-opening roads that were once plagued by bombs and terrorist attacks.

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