U.S. General Says Troop Surge Has Led to Progress in Iraq

May 31, 07:10 PM

Current Headlines: WASHINGTON _ With the last month marking one of the deadliest periods for U.S. troops since the start of the war, the second-ranking U.S. military commander in Iraq said Thursday that some progress has been made in the early going of the troop buildup.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of multinational troops in Iraq, said that overall sectarian violence is down, attacks in volatile Anbar province have been cut by half and nearly 18,000 enemy fighters have been captured this year.

"We've made small progress here. We have not made the progress that I think is necessary yet, but I hope over the summer that we will continue to make progress," Odierno said.

For the moment, however, any gains on the security front have been overshadowed by the American death toll.

At least 122 U.S. service members were killed in May, making it the deadliest month of the war since November 2004, when 137 troops were killed in action as the military fought some of the most pitched battles of the war in the embattled city of Fallujah. Two others U.S. soldiers who were captured in an attack earlier this month remain missing.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters Thursday via video conference, Odierno alternately touted gains while trying to lower expectations of a status report on the security situation that Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, is scheduled to present to Congress in September.

Odierno repeated the prediction made last week by President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that enemy fighters would increase the tempo of attacks this summer in the weeks before the operational update.

"They understand that if things aren't going well, a recommendation might be made to reduce our force presence here in Iraq," Odierno said.

While the Petraeus update has been in the pipeline for some time, Odierno suggested that September might be too soon to properly assess whether the so-called surge is working. Odierno is Petraeus' top deputy on the ground in Iraq and would brief Petraeus before the top commander makes his report to Congress.

The final brigade taking part in the troop buildup is expected to arrive in Iraq in the next couple of weeks. That unit probably will not have spent much time on the ground before Petraeus is to head to Capitol Hill, and it will be difficult to accurately assess the impact those troops are having, Odierno said.

"The assessment might be, `I need a little more time.' The assessment might be, `I've seen enough, and it's effective' or `I've seen enough and it's not going to be effective.'

"Right now if you asked me, I would tell you I'll probably need a little bit more time to do a true assessment," he said.

With 30,000 more U.S. troops flowing into Baghdad and Anbar province as part of the troop buildup, commanders say violence has increased in the outer belts of Baghdad. In the mixed Sunni-Shiite province of Diyala, north of Baghdad, a spike in attacks against U.S. troops and sectarian violence have caused the once relatively stable area to become volatile.

U.S. forces are now fighting several enemies in Diyala: Sunni nationalists, foreign-led al-Qaida forces and Shiite militias.

Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who oversees the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, said in a telephone interview that handing over control of security to Iraqi forces in Diyala has been delayed 90 days. Dempsey, who is wrapping up his tour commanding the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, said that increased sectarian tensions and al-Qaida fighters melting into Diyala since the surge in Baghdad have complicated the situation in the province.

The problems have seeped into the Iraqi security forces in Diyala, once considered among the best in Iraq. Earlier this month, the commander of the Iraqi army division in Iraq was relieved of duty for heavy-handed tactics against Diyala's Sunni population. The Iraqi commander purportedly had ties to the Badr Brigade, the militia connected to the Shiite political organization Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

"Militia infiltration of the security forces is less of a problem," Dempsey said in telephone interview with Chicago Tribune reporters and editors. "The larger problem is the influence militias have on the security force."

The troop buildup was framed by the Bush administration as an opportunity to give Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government the breathing space needed to achieve political reconciliation. Odierno said that commanders at all levels have been instructed to reach out to militants and tribal and religious leaders to persuade them to put down their arms and support the government.

"We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces," Odierno said

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