General: Iraq at its quietest since '04 - Yahoo! News

BAGHDAD - Violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion, finally opening a window for reconciliation among rival sects, the second-ranking U.S. general said Sunday as Iraqi forces formally took control of security across half the country.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the man responsible for the ground campaign in Iraq, said that the first six months of 2007 were probably the most violent period since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The past six months, however, had seen some of the lowest levels of violence since the conflict began, Odierno said, attributing the change to an increase in both American troops and better-trained Iraqi forces.

"I feel we are back in '03 and early '04. Frankly I was here then, and the environment is about the same in terms of security in my opinion," he said. "What is different from then is that the Iraqi security forces are significantly more mature."

Violence killed at least 27 Iraqis on Sunday — 16 of them members of a U.S.-backed neighborhood patrol killed in clashes with al-Qaida in a volatile province neighboring Baghdad. Thirty-five al-Qaida fighters also died in that fighting, Iraqi officials said.

Odierno said Anbar province, once plagued by violence, only recorded 12 attacks in the past week, down from an average of 26 per week over the past three months.

"The violence last week was the lowest ever," he said of Anbar.

"So that kind of defines 2007 very simply. A long hard fight and a lot of sacrifice by a lot of soldiers, Marines and airmen to get there," Odierno said.

A planned reduction of troops to about 130,000 at the end of next year from a high of around 165,000 at the height of the "surge" should not derail that effort, but Iraq's government must take advantage of the improved security, Odierno said. There are 154,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now.

"We have a window, I don't know how long that window is, but there is a window because of the security to move forward," Odierno told a small group of journalists at his headquarters in Baghdad. "We need to get policies in place by the central government to do this."

One of the most important, he said, was a draft bill to ease curbs implemented against former supporters of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

Iraqi lawmakers are debating the U.S.-backed draft law that would pave the way for the creation of a National Commission for Accountability and Justice, an independent body that would screen former Baath members in place of the de-Baathfication commission, which many Sunnis have complained has been overly zealous in purging low-ranking party members who had in many cases joined the party under pressure from Saddam and been following orders.

"Reconciliation must continue," Odierno said.

The U.S.-led coalition has been gradually transferring control of security to the Iraqi government and Britain's handover of southern Basra was the latest in a series that began in July 2006. The coalition retains control over half of Iraq's 18 provinces, including Anbar and central areas where violence has flagged but not stopped.

"This is a step toward resuming security responsibilities in all of Iraq's provinces that is due in the middle of next year," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said in Basra. He represented Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at the handover ceremony in the capital of the oil-rich region.

In Diyala, one of Iraq's most dangerous regions, al-Qaida militants tried to regain control of several villages around Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, but the U.S. backed volunteers drove them away, said Abdul Karim al-Rubaie of the provincial command center.

Sunnis have been turning against al-Qaida in significant numbers and signing up for the volunteer security forces — partly in disgust at the militant group's brutal tactics, and partly to seek American protection against what they see as government-backed Shiite militias.

"It is a battle of life and death, it is a continuous fight until we cleanse all the villages on the outskirts of Khalis," said Sheik Zuhair al-Obeidi, who was involved in Sunday's fighting.

Next summer is more than half a year longer than President Bush's prediction in January that Iraq would assume control all of its provinces by November. Giving responsibility to the Iraqi army and police does not necessarily mean that violence will abate in Basra, where rival Shiite parties and militias have fought for control of the province.

"This remains a violent society whose tensions need to addressed, but they need to be addressed by Iraqi political leaders," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who also attended the handover ceremony, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said in a joint statement with U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Patricia A. Butenis, that Iraqi forces "have demonstrated their readiness to assume responsibility for the provincial security. Today this responsibility is theirs."

British troops will not immediately leave southern Iraq but will instead remain at their base just outside the city. This is know by the military as "operational overwatch," in which Iraqi security forces and civilian police take responsibility under a provincial governor, or other official, and coalition forces are held in reserve in bases that are spread out — intervening when necessary or when asked.

The next phase would involve a hand over at a national level — which could then set stage for a large-scale withdrawal of all foreign troops a few years later.

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Well, Gix, the bravery of our soliders is unmatched in the world...
Would you agree with this assessment?

How Petraeus Turned Around Iraq
By Trudy Rubin

On Thursday, Gen. David Petraeus addressed a gathering of hundreds of Sunni sheikhs in flowing robes, including some who were attacking his soldiers around the capital not long ago.

This is the new Baghdad, where security has improved as tens of thousands of former Sunni insurgents have recently turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and smashed it with U.S. help. Many of these Sunnis are now on the U.S. payroll. But no one is certain whether these security gains will hold after the extra U.S. "surge" troops are withdrawn as scheduled by next July, or whether Iraq will slip back into brutal sectarian warfare.

So I asked Petraeus how he assessed the current situation and the post-surge future. We spoke in his Baghdad office, in Saddam Hussein's garish former palace with its marble floors (and marble bathrooms) and grandiose reception rooms now housing U.S. government offices.

"I think it is going the way we wanted in Baghdad and the belts around Baghdad," he replied. "We have done considerable damage to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Anbar is transformed," he added, referring to the Sunni province once home to the toughest insurgents and a base for al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Then he paused. "Tenuous is the right word to describe the situation," he said, "and you won't find any military commanders doing victory dances in the end zone. We are all guarded in our assessments, with a great deal of wariness about the what-might-be's."

Petraeus is right to be both confident and wary.

The security progress of recent months results largely from a new military and political strategy that reverses the haphazard, incoherent U.S. Iraq policies of the last four tragic years.

In October 2003, when I first met Petraeus when he was commander of the 101st Airborne based in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, he was implementing a counterinsurgency strategy with this central principle: Winning over local Sunni tribal leaders was a higher priority than military action. The sheikhs were given economic aid and jobs to get the economy restarted, and their men were hired into a new local security force.

Back then, though, there was no coherent U.S. political military strategy for the whole of Iraq. In Anbar province, the Sunni heartland, the U.S. focus was on military attacks, and tribal leaders were treated crudely and brusquely; in fall 2003, I heard several complain bitterly when I visited Anbar. They soon became supporters of the insurgency and al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Now Petraeus has made a new army counterinsurgency doctrine the basis of the military approach in Iraq, a doctrine that stresses flexibility and winning the support of local people. He says that U.S. commanders and troopers "get it," that "we are finally seeing the cumulative impact of changes in our [new counterintelligence] manual. Mission rehearsals in California used to [simulate] mechanized forces colliding in the Mojave desert." But now the exercises simulate the challenge of dealing with Iraqi villagers and townsmen, with "thousands of Iraqi speakers playing roles."

We can now see the new doctrine in action. When tribal leaders in Anbar turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq because it had started persecuting local Sunnis, and when these sheikhs asked for U.S. backing, an army commander in Anbar took a chance and agreed to support them. (In 2006, U.S. commanders rebuffed similar requests.) Now the U.S. support has become massive.

Petraeus credits the Anbar movement, known as "the Anbar awakening," with creating a "dramatic shift. There was a critical mass of popular opposition to al-Qaeda in Anbar, and it rippled down the Euphrates Valley and around Baghdad." Now tribesmen do most of the policing in Anbar, and about 70,000 tribal fighters are assisting U.S. forces in Baghdad and elsewhere.

But the general recognizes the fear of the Shiite-led government that these groups could morph into violent Sunni militias, or be infiltrated by members of al-Qaeda. "You work very hard to get them transitioned into the Iraqi police," he said. For the large numbers who don't qualify, "we're developing a lot of programs, a civil-service corps." U.S. funds will pay for this Sunni job corps at first, but the Iraqi government has pledged about $150 million to match the U.S. funding.

Petraeus said the program "saves double the cost per month in the number of U.S. military vehicles not lost to insurgents, not to mention the lives." He is also trying to win Sunni hearts and minds by hastening the release of thousands of Sunnis detained in U.S. prisons.

But to co-opt the insurgency and prevent renewed fighting, there must be political progress. The whole purpose of the surge was to open a window of space and time that would permit sectarian Iraqi leaders to reconcile and help heal the country. That scenario would enable sizable U.S. troop withdrawals. But Iraqi political leaders have yet to oblige.

Petraeus said, with excess generosity, "the political piece is sputtering along. None of this is smooth."

But he added that, though top political leaders have not passed "benchmark" laws, "there is reconciliation in many provinces in a way not yet reflected at the top." One hope is that the Anbar Awakening may morph into new, nonsectarian political groupings more willing to deal with Shiite leaders than the current Sunni political parties.

Petraeus recognizes that unless Sunnis feel integrated into the political system, the current security progress could unravel. Another wild card is the radical Shiite militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, which once drilled holes in heads of Sunni civilians but has been observing a cease-fire. The general said he thought the cease-fire would hold, because Sadr's movement was clearly "aware of the damage done to its reputation" by attacks on fellow Shiites, criminal behavior and extortion.

Another wild card is Iran and whether it will continue to aid "special groups" that it trains, which operate under the Sadrist umbrella. Petraeus said "there has been a decrease in signature attacks" by these groups, after "Iraqi leaders asked [the Iranians] to stop these attacks."

I asked Petraeus how the scheduled drawdown of "surge" troops - about 22,000 - would affect the security gains. After all, al-Qaeda in Iraq retains strength in the north and could try a comeback. "We have to maintain the pressure on al-Qaeda," he said. But he believed this could be done without adverse affects by "thinning out" U.S. units "while thickening with local forces" like the new Sunni paramilitary, and better-trained Iraqi units.

Will the U.S. troop levels fall lower next year, and do we want permanent bases? Petraeus, who is to return to testify before Congress in March, would not answer on the record. But Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said recently that Iraq would never permit permanent bases, and the White House said it didn't want them. (Permanent remains undefined.)

My impression from my trip is that the military agrees. The United States will sign a security agreement with Iraq in the coming year. Ideally, the military would like to ramp troop levels down and hand off most responsibility for counterinsurgency to Iraqi troops. U.S. troops would then have a different mission, focusing on training and security assistance.

But Petraeus' caution is well-founded. No one can clearly foresee what will develop in current months because the variables are so many and each affects the other. Yet there are now possibilities for positive change that did not exist six months ago.

2004...................hmmmmmm........... isn't this around the same time you where supposedly in iraq with your father that was a soldier..... wait thats right you lied about that.......

__________________
"The most important and most connected man on this forum."
"As per the Forums leftist who insist I am associated with the upper echelons of our government, corporate America and the world’s power class.
Every moon bat conspiracy leads to me. "