|
WASHINGTON D.C. (March 10, 2008) - A month into his third tour
in Iraq, the commander of Multinational Force West said today he's
amazed by vast improvements across Anbar province, with a sharp
drop in violence and continued progress among Iraqi security
forces.
"It's stunning to me how low (violence levels) are," Marine Maj.
Gen. John F. Kelly told Pentagon reporters from a videoconference
center in Baghdad.
"When I left here three years ago, you could not go into the
cities -- Fallujah, Ramadi, places like that -- without a rifle
company of Marines, and it was a gunfight going in and a gunfight
going out," Kelly said.
It was impossible to make the 40-mile drive between Ramadi and
Fallujah without seeing four or five improvised explosive devices
or their results, he added.
Three years later, gunfire is a rare sound in the region, except
on Thursday nights when Iraqis hold wedding celebrations, Kelly
said.
Al Qaeda has been beaten back in the once-restive region to the
point that its operatives have gone underground or fled to other
parts of Iraq, he said.
But Kelly said he recognizes that the threat remains and that al
Qaeda hasn't given up. "They're down, but they're not out," he
said.
"It's stunning to me where we are on this, but it is not over
yet, in terms of violence," he said. "We have to be vigilant,
because it's not quite won yet."
Terrorists have changed tactics, going after Iraqi sheiks,
police officials and civil leaders, rather than Americans, Kelly
said. Suicide vests have become a weapon of choice, with nearly a
dozen such attacks during the last month. And some signs point to
plans to launch "bigger events that catch the attention of the
world through the media," he said.
As offensive operations flush al Qaeda out of other Iraqi
provinces, Kelly said, he recognizes that terrorists are likely to
return to Anbar province, a region they know.
If they do, Kelly said, the situation they'll confront will be
far different from what they left. The Iraqi people have become
partners in cracking down on terrorists, reporting their activities
and whereabouts, he said.
Iraqi security forces have made strong headway, and the 1st and
7th Iraqi army divisions operating in Anbar are among the best. "I
probably sound like a proud parent here, but they are two very,
very good divisions relative to the overall Iraqi army," Kelly
said.
The United States made a tremendous investment to make them that
good, embedding large, seasoned Army and Marine Corps training
teams with the Iraqis, he said. "They live with the Iraqis 24/7,
fight with them, eat with them, shower with them. It's an
around-the-clock event for them," Kelly said.
The U.S. also invested heavily in the quality of its training
teams, staffing them with experienced senior noncommissioned
officers and officers, he said. "These are all first-round draft
choices," Kelly said.
As a result, the Iraqis are not only partners in nearly all
coalition missions, but are carrying out many on their own, he
said.
The Iraqi police have made similar progress, with 23,000 on
board and another 1,000 authorized. Kelly said he hopes to see that
number boosted to 30,000, "because the police have really come on
strong and given us an advantage out there."
Police transition teams are helping the Iraqi police the same
way military transition teams are helping the Iraqi army, he
said.
With security improvements continuing, the coalition in Anbar is
working hand in hand with provincial reconstruction teams to
promote development, Kelly said. The priorities are electricity, "a
constant;" clean water, "a relatively good-news story;" jobs; and
agricultural development, he said.
|
