re: Nonsense. The insurgents movement is a losing proposition.
<snip>In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year....
<snip>One senior officer suggested Wednesday that U.S. military involvement could last ``many years.''...
<snip>``I think that this could still fail,'' the officer said at the briefing, referring to the U.S. effort in Iraq. ``It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail.'' He said much depended on the new government's success in increasing public confidence among Iraqis.
The officer said recent polls conducted by Baghdad University had shown confidence flagging sharply, down from an 85 percent rating immediately after the elections...
<snip>The generals said the buildup of Iraqi forces has been more disappointing than previously acknowledged. They noted the absence of any Iraqi forces when a 1,000-member Marine battle group mounted an offensive last week against insurgent strongholds in the northwestern desert near Syria.
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Generals, shedding exuberance, say mission may last `many years'
By John F. Burns and Eric Schmitt
New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment of the war in Iraq on Wednesday, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to make a trip to Baghdad last weekend to consult with Iraq's new government.
In interviews and briefings Wednesday, the generals pulled back from recent suggestions -- including those by some of the same officers -- that positive trends could allow a reduction in the 138,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq by late this year or early in 2006.
One senior officer suggested Wednesday that U.S. military involvement could last ``many years.''
Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi paramilitary police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to the insurgents and allow U.S. forces to reduce their role in fighting.
President Bush, in a speech Wednesday evening in Washington, called for patience in assessing Iraq's progress toward democracy.
``No nation in history has made the transition from tyranny to a free society without setbacks and false starts,'' Bush told the International Republican Institute. ``What separates those nations that succeed from those that falter is their progress in establishing free institutions.''
In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year.
Against this, he said, there has been a lull in insurgents' activity in Baghdad in recent days after months of some of the bloodiest attacks, a trend that suggested that U.S. pressure, including the capture of key bomb makers, had left the insurgents incapable of mounting protracted offensives.
But the officer said that despite U.S. troops' recent successes in disrupting insurgent cells, which have resulted in the arrest of 1,100 suspects in Baghdad alone in the past 80 days, the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured.
``I think that this could still fail,'' the officer said at the briefing, referring to the U.S. effort in Iraq. ``It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail.'' He said much depended on the new government's success in increasing public confidence among Iraqis.
The officer said recent polls conducted by Baghdad University had shown confidence flagging sharply, down from an 85 percent rating immediately after the elections.
Another problem cited by the senior officer in Baghdad was the new government's ban on raids on mosques, announced Monday, which the U.S. officer said he expected to be revised.
To raise the level of public confidence, the officer said, the new government would need success in cutting insurgent attacks and addressing popular impatience for improvements in public services such as electricity that for many Iraqis are worse than they were last year.
But the U.S. officer emphasized the need for caution -- and the time it may take to complete the U.S. mission -- themes that recur often in the private conversations of U.S. officers in Iraq.
``I think it's going to succeed in the long run, even if it takes years, many years,'' he said.
On a personal note, he added that he, like many U.S. soldiers, had spent long periods of duty related to Iraq and he said: ``We believe in the mission that we've got. We believe in it because we're in it, and if we let go of the insurgency and take our foot off its throat, then this country could fail and go back into civil war and chaos.''
Only weeks ago, in the aftermath of the elections, U.S. generals offered a more upbeat view, one that was tied to a surge of Iraqi confidence that one commander in Baghdad now describes as ``euphoria.''
But on Wednesday, five high-ranking officers, speaking separately at the Pentagon and in Baghdad, and through an e-mail exchange from Baghdad with a reporter in Washington, ranged with unusual candor and detail over problems now confronting the war effort.
The generals' remarks, emphasizing the insurgency's resilience but also U.S. and Iraqi successes in disrupting it, suggested that U.S. commanders may have seen an opportunity after Rice's trip to inject their own note of realism into public debate about Iraq.
In talks with Iraq's new Shiite leaders, Rice urged a more convincing effort to reach out to the dispossessed Sunni minority, warning that success required a political strategy that encouraged at least some Sunni insurgent groups to turn toward peace.
The generals said the buildup of Iraqi forces has been more disappointing than previously acknowledged. They noted the absence of any Iraqi forces when a 1,000-member Marine battle group mounted an offensive last week against insurgent strongholds in the northwestern desert near Syria.
U.S. officers said 125 insurgents had been killed, with the loss of about 14 U.S. soldiers, but acknowledged that lack of sufficient troops may have helped many insurgents to flee across the border or back into the interior of Iraq.
The border offensive was concluded during the weekend, with an air of disappointment that some of the wider goals had not been achieved -- possibly including the capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Islamist who is the U.S. forces' most-wanted man in Iraq.
One officer said U.S. military intelligence had information that the recent car-bombing offensive had been ordered by a high-level meeting of insurgents in Syria within the past 30 days, and that reports indicated that one of those at the meeting may have been Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant who was named by Osama bin Laden earlier this year as Al-Qaida's chief in Iraq. In statements on Islamist Web sites, groups loyal to Zarqawi have claimed responsibility for many of the car bombings. |
