After six months fully in place, the so-called U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq is, by all accounts, showing benefits. Civilian and military deaths are down, as are attacks on U.S. troops.
Some refugees are returning from neighboring countries, and Iraqis are returning to the streets and shops of some Baghdad neighborhoods.
But recent weeks have marked the beginning of the end for the surge: The first brigade is being rotated out — and not being replaced.
By the time all of the surge combat forces are redeployed next summer, there will be at least 25,000 fewer troops on the ground.
Gen. David Petraeus is the man who brought the extra troops to Iraq. The top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq talks to Melissa Block about how he will make gains stick as U.S. troops leave.
Melissa Block: As extra U.S. troops leave and aren't replaced, how do you move ahead? Or at least, how do you make the gains that you've seen so far stick?
Gen. David Petraeus: The Iraqi surge will continue. That has been ongoing throughout this time as well, and tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and a like number of police have been added to their rolls during this time.
To be sure, there is an unevenness to the quality of these units; some are quite experienced and have been at it for quite a while and are quite competent. And then there are others that have literally just come off the parade field and gone right into the battlefield.
But that surge will continue, and we also have help in a number of local areas from what are called concerned local citizens. These are individuals who, as the tribes and others have stood up and rejected al-Qaida, in particular, have then said that they would like to contribute to security in their areas, and in fact, we have contracted with a number of them to help us do just that.
These concerned local citizens that you're talking about are overwhelmingly Sunni. Are you concerned that that transition into what is largely a Shiite military might not be so easy?
Sure. Yeah. No, there are very legitimate concerns here. In fact, we had a very good session with the prime minister and the ministerial council on national security on Sunday where a variety of voices were heard, laid out ... concerns, legitimate issues about the fact that these organizations could be infiltrated by al-Qaida, by insurgents who have not been reconciled with the new Iraq, by criminals — you name it.
But I should point out ... there are about 14,000 Shia among the concerned local citizens, and that's appropriate because some of these areas are mixed. The majority, though, as you pointed out, are Sunni because they're from Sunni areas. That's where al-Qaida was, that's where the insurgents associated with al-Qaida were, and they have helped us keep those areas clear, so that the sanctuaries that al-Qaida had before are now being held by a combination of Iraqi army, Iraqi police, coalition forces and, in some cases, these concerned local citizens.
There have been statements from some of the U.S. forces working with these concerned local citizens that they know full-well that among those people who they are now paying and trusting are people who, not so long ago, were setting IEDs and targeting U.S. troops. Doesn't that imply that there's some real problem with how much you can depend on them and how their allegiances might sway?
There are legitimate concerns that we share with our Iraqi counterparts. But beyond that ... you don't end the kind of conflict you've had here by killing everybody who shot at you. You end it by reconciling with as many of those as you can and making them part of the solution to deal with the remaining problem of the real, so-called hard-core irreconcilables. And that category would certainly include many of the al-Qaida (in) Iraq fighters.
Remember, this started when a tribal leader came to us and in so many words said, "Would it be OK if we point our weapons at al-Qaida instead of at you?" The Taliban-like ideology, the extremism in religion, the indiscriminate violence, all of these have damaged al-Qaida very much in the eyes of the Iraqi people.
This rejection of al-Qaida has been a hugely important factor in the reduction of violence as has, by the way, the fact that there are fewer foreign fighters coming into Iraq for a variety of reasons. One is, we do believe that neighboring countries are taking more vigorous action against foreign-fighter facilitators in Syria, in particular.
As you start reducing U.S. troop levels in Iraq and given the uneven performance of the Iraqi forces and Iraqi police, how worried are you about security gaps that either al-Qaida in Iraq or Shiite militias might very handily exploit?
Obviously we're watching areas very, very closely as we thin out our forces or move them around from one location to another. We've been doing this all along. Obviously, you have to respond to the enemy, and if you can get the enemy on the run, you need to stay after them. I mean, we are trying to get our teeth into the jugular of al-Qaida (in) Iraq if we can; at least that's the image that we would like to have for ourselves of what we and our Iraqi counterparts are attempting to do, and to stay after them, and to try to keep them on the run to stay in the pursuit mode, tactically ... as opposed to the deliberate attack where you had to go in and clear a city heavily defended like Ramadi or like Baqouba, and where ... obviously there are very tough casualties, and the enemy has been able to prepare massive explosive devices and so forth.
I'd like to have you respond to what a former U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, had to say earlier. He said he sees no evidence that Iraq's leaders are working toward a political solution, and he says he agrees with the bill in the House (of Representatives) to withdraw all combat troops by December of next year.
Let me just point out that there have been areas of political progress that I think we should give the Iraqis credit for. Very recently, for example, the pension law was signed. And it was interesting because it required overturning the veto by one member of the presidency council. This was hugely significant. In fact, arguably it could have been a benchmark law because it fosters reconciliation; it extends pension rights to a number of individuals, thousands of them, who were really left out because of policies followed after liberation.
The de-Baathification reform bill — (the) so-called Justice and Accountability (Law) — has had its second reading in the Iraqi parliament, in their council of representatives. So, there has been slow, very slow in some cases, halting progress in the political arena, and I think it would be only fair to recall the fundamental nature of the debate that has to be undertaken to reach agreement on some of the laws that they are striving to pass.
So when Gen. Sanchez says all combat troops should be out by December of 2008, to that, you would say what?
Again, I think I'd just come back to what our mission is here, and our mission is to — you know, we characterized it by the words "security while transitioning." And I don't think anyone believes that we'll be done either helping the Iraqis maintain security or ... transitioning all responsibilities to Iraqis across the board by the end of the year. So, again, from — I'm a soldier; I've got a mission, and we will certainly require forces to continue to perform that mission.
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