<<"I think we are there for 10 years," General Barry McCaffrey told BBC television's Newsnight program, stressing that the next 12 months would be very tough.>>
Former U.S. Army Chief Warns of Long Haul in Iraq
Tue Jul 1, 6:28 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - A former four-star U.S. army general who led a major and controversial attack during the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, warned on Tuesday that U.S. troops could be locked into Iraq (news - web sites) for the next decade.
"I think we are there for 10 years," General Barry McCaffrey told BBC television's Newsnight program, stressing that the next 12 months would be very tough.
"We have got a year of a very complex, dangerous, violent environment that we are going to have to deal with. We have got three huge, warring factions -- the Kurds, the Shia, the Sunni Muslims," McCaffrey, who retired in 1996, said.
McCaffrey, who led the U.S. 24th mechanized infantry division in what was termed the greatest cavalry charge in history in the famed "left hook" dash during the 1991 Iraq war, warned of a "growing and very violent underground opposition."
He said the U.S. forces, with international reinforcements, would cope in the short term, but with two-thirds of the armed forces deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan (news - web sites) and South Korea (news - web sites) it was not sustainable long term.
"The coalition can't create security and stability operations by themselves. You have to build an Iraqi police force and build a new Iraqi military...that is capable of maintaining their own security," he added.
McCaffrey called on President Bush (news - web sites) to tell the truth to the Americans with more than 20 soldiers killed in ambushes in the two months since he declared the war over.
"I think there has been some unhelpful language. We have got to be straight with the American people and we have got to be straight with the U.S. armed forces," McCaffrey said.
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