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WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 10, 2008) - The war in Iraq has
entered the "endgame" phase and it is important to get it right,
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said during testimony on Capitol
Hill today.
"Our decisions today and in the months ahead will be critical to
regional stability and our national security interests for years to
come," the secretary said. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House
Armed Services Committee.
The secretary cautioned against undue haste in withdrawing U.S.
forces from Iraq. President Bush's decision yesterday to withdraw
8,000 servicemembers from Iraq by January is about right, as
conditions in Iraq are still fragile, Gates said. When he entered
office in December 2006, the secretary told the lawmakers, the main
U.S. concern in Iraq was to halt and reverse the spiraling violence
to prevent a strategic calamity for the United States. The United
States also wanted to allow the Iraqis to make progress on the
political, economic and security fronts, he added.
"Disagreements in our country still exist over the speed of the
drawdowns and whether we should adhere to hard-and-fast timelines
or more flexible time horizons," Gates said. "I worry that the
great progress our troops and the Iraqis have made has the
potential to override a measure of caution born of
uncertainty."
U.S. military commanders do not yet believe the gains in Iraq
are necessarily enduring. "The continuing but carefully modulated
reductions the president has ordered represent, I believe, not only
the right direction but also the right course of action -
especially considering planned and unplanned redeployments by some
of our coalition partners," Gates said. "The planned reductions are
an acceptable risk today, but also provide for unforeseen
circumstances in the future."
The planned reductions also preserve options for the next
commander in chief, the secretary said. There are 146,000 U.S.
servicemembers in Iraq today. At the height of the surge, there
were about 166,000.
"As we proceed deeper into the endgame, I would urge our
nation's leaders to implement strategies that, while steadily
reducing our presence in Iraq, are cautious and flexible and take
into account the advice of our senior commanders and military
leaders," he said. "I would also urge our leaders to keep in mind
that we should expect to be involved in Iraq for years to come,
although in changing and increasingly limited ways."
The U.S. military already has withdrawn the five Army brigade
combat teams, two Marine battalions and the Marine expeditionary
unit that made up the surge force. Bush announced yesterday that a
further 8,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by February
without being replaced. The withdrawal of about 3,400 noncombat
forces begins this month and will continue through the fall and
winter.
The drawdown is possible because of the success achieved in
reducing violence and building Iraqi security capacity, Gates said,
noting that Iraqi troops have stepped up to the plate and that even
with fewer American troops in the country, the trends in violence
are down.
"Our casualties have been greatly reduced -- though even one is
still too many -- and overall violence is down 80 percent," he
said. "The recent turnover of Anbar province to Iraqi provincial
control - the 11th of 18 provinces to be turned over - highlights
how much the situation has improved."
Still, the secretary said, some problems still loom, including
the prospect of violence in the lead-up to elections, worrisome
reports about sectarian efforts to slow the assimilation of the
"Sons of Iraq" citizen security groups into the Iraqi security
forces, Iranian influence, threats al-Qaida continues to pose, and
a resurgence of illegal militias the military calls "special
groups."
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