This Op-Ed was rejected by the New York Times

But not by the Weekly Standard. It was penned by Iraq War Vets in response to an Opinion piece disparaging the Surge, written by members of the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division which appeared in the Times:

The 2nd Brigade is responsible for two dangerous areas of Baghdad:
Adihamiyah and Sadr City. Airborne troopers there have seen the worst al Qaeda
and the Mahdi Army can throw at them and the Iraqi people. But the whole story
is that the Iraqis and soldiers in their sector have not yet been fully affected
by the surge of troops and operations, which have barely been in place two
months.
Currently, American and Iraqi Forces are clearing sections of
southern Baghdad before turning north to the 82nd Airborne's neighborhoods. As
such, the portrait these soldiers painted, while surely accurate and honest, is
more representative of pre-surge Baghdad: sectarian strife, lawlessness, and
indiscriminate slaughter.
This is not, however, the picture elsewhere in
Iraq, or even most of Baghdad.

Please read the rest, to get the whole story of what's really happening on the ground, something the Gray Lady conveniently left out.