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BAGHDAD, Iraq (March 2, 2008) - The top military commander in
Iraq gave some insight today into what he will consider as he
prepares to report to the president and Congress in April on the
way ahead.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multinational Force
Iraq, spoke with reporters accompanying Navy Adm. Mike Mullen,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is visiting the
country.
The security trend lines all are favorable, the general said.
"Attacks have continued to go down. We've had a five-month period
consistently of a level of attacks we've not seen since spring of
2005," he said. "This past week was the fourth-lowest since October
2004."
Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker will
explain why they believe attacks have come down when they report to
President Bush and Congress.
The general said he is encouraged by the statistics and what he
sees around the country. "In fact, the level of attacks has come
down in recent weeks below a level we thought might be the
'irreducible minimum,'" he said.
Petraeus said he also will consider the progress Iraqi security
forces have made. "The Iraqi surge of 2007 was well over 100,000,"
he said citing the growth of the nation's army and police force.
"Added to that is the 90,000 Sons of Iraq - the concerned local
citizens - who have added considerably. (These forces are)
substantially 'thickening' our forces."
The general said he also will consider Iraqi civilian deaths in
formulating his recommendations. "If your focus is on securing the
people, then it is a metric you have to pay attention to, and we
do," he said.
Crocker will lay out the developments in the political arena and
describe the laws that have passed over the past couple of months.
The ambassador will talk about the potential for provincial
elections in the fall and describe the economic situation, Petraeus
said.
The general said he will lay out his recommendations "for the
process by which we'll go about assessing conditions in the wake of
the drawdown of the surge brigade combat teams." The drawdown of
the original surge forces is set to end in July. He said he will
explain the factors he will consider in making recommendations on
subsequent withdrawals.
The way ahead in Iraq will not be easy, the general said. "Each
day something bad happens," he said. "(But) the relative degree of
the bad news tends to be less."
The number of car bomb attacks has dropped, but there is a
slight increase in suicide-vest attacks. Al Qaeda is having a tough
time building car bombs and then getting them through checkpoints,
Petraeus explained, but suicide vests are transportable and are now
being handed to women.
The command has already drawn down a brigade combat team and a
Marine expeditionary unit. Another brigade combat team will leave
the country this month. Petraeus said the command will "thin out"
coalition forces as this occurs, and "not just hand off an area
completely to Iraqi forces."
"We will maintain a sufficient footprint with an adequate,
generally substantial, Iraqi force of police and soldiers," the
general explained. "It provides situational awareness and a link to
the enablers that we can provide - indirect fire, close-air
(support), medevac, quick-reaction forces and so on." The idea also
maintains a fusion cell for intelligence.
"Obviously, as we draw down, (the Iraqis) have to pick up more
of the responsibility, and that is the case," Petraeus said.
Al Qaeda remains the biggest threat, and over time coalition and
Iraqi forces have killed, captured or run off substantial numbers
of the terror group. But there is still a lot of work to do in the
Diyala and Tigris river valleys, and in Iraq's second-largest city
of Mosul and surrounding Ninevah province.
"We are going after al Qaeda relentlessly wherever they are, and
wherever we can find them, we put our teeth into their jugular,"
Petraeus said.
Mosul is an important place to al Qaeda. "Analysts have said
that while Baghdad is critical for al Qaeda to win in Iraq, Mosul
and its area is critical for their survival," the general said.
Recent successes notwithstanding, Petraeus warned, a "final battle"
with the terrorist group is not imminent.
"Al Qaeda is incredibly resilient," he said, "and they are
receiving people and supplies through Syria - although numbers
through Syria are down as much as 50 percent."
Coalition and Iraqi forces will take on al Qaeda in the north,
but will do so on their timetable and according to their plans, the
general said. He will not start shifting U.S. and Iraqi forces
willy-nilly around the country.
"The key is to hang on to what you've got," he said. "You
cannot, in your eagerness to go after something new, start to play
'Whack-a-mole' again. You have to hang onto the areas you've
cleared; you have to have that plan to do before you go."
Coalition forces are moving to Mosul and Ninevah, but Petraeus
said he will not risk losing gains made in Baghdad, the belts
around Baghdad and in Anbar province to do so.
"Al Qaeda is trying to come back in," he said. "We can feel it
and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before
they can get deeply into the ground."
The bottom line militarily in Iraq is a "feel" for the country
and the determination of what constitutes an acceptable risk, the
general told reporters. "At the end of the day, it's about feel,"
he said. "We have commanders in most cases on their second tours in
Iraq, some on their third. Over time, you can start to feel where
you can take a bit more risk and also where you cannot.
"You have to walk the streets, talk to the leaders, talk to your
own commanders and then you bat it around every day," he said.
Petraeus said he doesn't feel any anxiety over his
decisions.
"If you want to talk about anxiety, talk about coming back to
Iraq in February 2007 and being greeted by 42 car bombs," he said.
"The level of attacks was more than 150 a day, and our losses were
exceedingly tough."
With so much chaos in the country, it was hard just trying to
get a handle on where forces needed to go, the general recalled.
"We've worked our way through that," Petraeus said. "These
additional concerns are very serious, but we're working on those
with the Iraqi government."
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