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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (15286)	9/20/2007 1:24:04 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224744

Hillary & AS unhappy that >Iraq violence lowest since '06 Sep 20, 2007 by Paul Tait BAGHDAD, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since before a mosque attack last year which unleashed the deadliest phase of the Iraq war, the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said on Thursday. Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno said attacks in Baghdad had also fallen by half since January, just before Washington began pouring 30,000 extra troops into Iraq to try to drag the nation back from the brink of civil war. "There are still way too many civilian casualties inside of Baghdad and Iraq," Odierno said, after telling a news conference the number of sectarian killings in the capital had fallen from an average of about 32 a day to 12 a day this year. U.S. forces launched a security crackdown in Baghdad in February which later spread to other provinces, targeting Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab insurgents as well as Shi'ite militias. "Al Qaeda in Iraq is increasingly being pushed out of Baghdad and the surrounding areas. They are now seeking refuge elsewhere in the country and even fleeing Iraq," Odierno said. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki this month said his government had averted civil war and that levels of violence in Baghdad and surrounding areas had fallen 75 percent since the "surge" of troops began. Al Qaeda, however, has vowed to step up attacks during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. At least 30 people were killed in a spate of bombings and shootings across Iraq on Sunday, soon after that threat was issued. Odierno said there had been no sign of any reprisal attacks since a Baghdad shooting incident on Sunday involving U.S. security firm Blackwater in which 11 people were killed. U.S. and Iraqi officials have launched a joint inquiry into the incident, with Maliki's government announcing it had halted Blackwater's operations and would review the activities of all local and foreign security firms. "It's amazing to me the great restraint that the Iraqis showed and we're very thankful for that," Odierno said. The security crackdown was seen by Washington as an attempt to buy time for Iraq's fractured coalition government to reach political benchmarks aimed at reconciling majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam Hussein. Maliki's Shi'ite-led coalition has been paralysed by infighting and the withdrawal of about a dozen ministers from cabinet, but a senior lawmaker said Maliki's 16-month-old administration was not about to fall. "There is absolutely no way now to overthrow the government and to present a proposal to withdraw confidence from it," Khaled al-Attiya, the deputy speaker of parliament and an independent member of the ruling Shi'ite Alliance, told Reuters. The bombing of the golden-domed al-Askari mosque, one of Iraq's four holiest Shi'ite shrines, in mainly Sunni Arab Samarra in February 2006 sparked the deadliest phase of violence since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam in March 2003. Sectarian violence had been on the rise, but the bombing changed the focus from a Sunni Arab insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi forces into a spate of revenge sectarian attacks in which tens of thousands of Iraqis died and many more fled their homes. Odierno said U.S. and Iraqi forces had been pressing ahead with their strategy of keeping al Qaeda and other militant groups "off balance" by targeting their leadership. U.S. troops this year have been pushing out of large bases into smaller combat outposts and joint command centres in neighbourhoods in Baghdad and areas around the city. This had also led to an increase in the discovery of weapons caches, which in turn resulted in a decrease in the number of attacks by improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs, by far the biggest killers of U.S. troops in Iraq, Odierno said. He said 60 percent more weapons caches had been discovered in the first nine months of 2007 than in all of 2006. General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and ambassador Ryan Crocker reported to Congress last week that some security improvements had been achieved although the pace of political progress was disappointing. U.S. President George W. Bush, under pressure to show progress in the unpopular war or bring troops home, later announced a limited withdrawal of about 20,000 troops by July.<