|
WASHINGTON D.C. (March 20, 2008) - New units moving into Iraq
have the challenge of continuing the security improvements while
helping the Iraqis build economic and political structures, the
commander of a U.S. division preparing to take on that task said
today.
Army Maj. Gen. Michael L. Oates, commands the 10th Mountain
Division based at Fort Drum, N.Y., and in May, the division
headquarters will relieve the 3rd Infantry Division at
Multinational Division Center in Iraq.
"We want to build on the security environment that (Army Maj.
Gen. Rick Lynch, 3rd Infantry Division commander) and his guys have
created," Oates said during a roundtable discussion with Pentagon
reporters.
"The question is, 'How can we continue to advance the ball?'"
Oates said. "The areas that we need to work on are additional
employment, additional economic development and in the capacity of
the local governments."
Security is the key to all of those goals, and coalition
officials in Iraq have contended that if security were sufficient,
the Iraqi government could make some real progress in the other
areas.
Multinational Division Center's battle space covers the southern
Baghdad belts, the supply lines to Kuwait, and Wasit province out
to the Iranian border. The 10th Mountain Division will take over a
smaller force. Instead of four maneuver brigades, the 10th will
command three.
The area to which the division is deploying was a battleground
for al Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-supported "special groups." Oates
served there in 2005 and 2006 with the 101st Airborne Division. A
brigade of the 101st that was assigned there then lost 52 soldiers,
he said.
"I went back again in 2007 to visit a brigade from the 10th
Mountain in the area," the general said. "It had been a very
violent place; we had lost 52 soldiers, and two were missing." But
he found that in 2007, there was a precipitous change, as the
violence had just dropped off.
He recalled driving safely along a main supply route where his
unit had constantly struck improvised explosive devices. "We met
with people wearing these road guard vests, and met sheikhs I had
known the previous year," he said. "We had arrested or killed their
family members, and they had certainly killed some of our soldiers,
and there we were meeting and talking about the new
accommodation."
He said a number of factors have contributed to the drop in
violence. The first is that Shiia cleric Muqtaqda al-Sadr told his
militia to refrain from violence. "We know that has had an impact,"
Oates said.
Oates said he believes it's fair to say that paying former Sunni
insurgents to provide a security service has worked. "It's also
fair to say that in conversations with their sheikhs, they
indicated they had become more unhappy with al Qaeda and their
tactics," he said. "Al Qaeda was particularly brutal in the South
Baghdad area and out west in Anbar."
The third reason for the drop in violence is because there were
more U.S. soldiers on the street corners. "They have an impact on
security wherever they are located," Oates said. "So the sheer
increase in U.S. forces over the last several months has had an
impact."
The division should be able to maintain security with one fewer
maneuver brigade because conditions on the ground have changed, he
said.
"One of the conditions I expect to see changed is (that) the
Iraqi security forces … should be in better shape than when I
left," he said. "The reports out of the country are that the army
and police are making progress.
"It's not a zero-sum game, you don't just lose coalition force
and start all over again," he continued. "And now we have the Sons
of Iraq - the former concerned local citizens - and that changes
the security conditions on the ground."
The general is most interested to learn how the Iraqi government
has changed in the area. "I'm interested to see what's changed from
the Iraqi government, from the provincial level down to the local
level," he said. "We were really struggling the last time I was
there to get the linkage established in terms of employment."
Oates said it is important to assess how to move forward in the
country. As he takes command in Multinational Division Center, the
last units of the surge will be redeploying.
Getting provincial elections in place will be helpful in a
number of areas, the general said, especially in giving the Sunni
population a feeling of belonging and security.
More than half of 10th Mountain Division's soldiers have combat
experience in either Iraq or Afghanistan, Oates noted. They train
across the range of counterinsurgency measures all the way to
high-kinetic operations.
"The conditions under which they find themselves will dictate
how they act," he said. "There can be a real challenge if you go
into a situation thinking that sweetness and light has broken out.
You lower your guard. We won't do that."
|
