Current and former commdanders give outlook of slow progress in Iraq

Iraq was the topic of the day at the Pentagon, where current and former commanders took time to update the press on operations in Iraq and the outlook for troop levels and military strategy in the future.

Gen. James Dubik, commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, explained about the transfer of power from Coalition to Iraqi security forces. He explained the substantial growth in the forces that has occurred between June and December of 2007. While limited number of Iraqi security units, army and national police, are conducting and, in some cases, leading operations, the coalition, and primarily the United States remains responsible for weapons and logistical support, or what Dubik called enabling forces. He said that the challenge of handing over the capabilities and of speeding up the vetting process for growing the ranks remains.

Another important appearance was made by former second-in-command in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno. Odierno has been moved out of Iraq and replaced by Gen. Lloyd Austin as Multinational Corps commander. Odierno was able to draw some conclusions for the press corps about the progress in Iraq over his 15 months as a commander. He said that there have been large security gains on account of the surge, though he said that these gains have not reached a point where they are totally irreversible. However he did say that he was comfortable with planned troop reductions and that that point where gains were irreversible did not have to be reached before the troop dawn downs could continue as scheduled. Within the next week the number of brigade combat teams will be reduced to 18 and then down to 15 by July of 2008.

Odierno did take a rare step into politics saying that any presidential candidate should consider the strategy of assessment of all conditions before acting on draw down. Odierno said it was too early to talk about what specific withdrawal plans from the candidates would look like because as he said, "a lot can change in Iraq in 10 months."



Odierno has insight on the subject of Iran, specifically president Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Baghdad. When U.S. visitors have come to Baghdad in the past there is often some kind of security situation, specifically rocket attacks by what Odierno called "Iraninan surrogates." The reason why Ahmadinejad was able to walk around more freely, said Odierno, was because those militant groups were not attacking. He said he hopes that Iraqis will continue to see Iranian meddling and recognized that it is their training and directions to surrogate militant groups that are causing problems for Iraqis.

He said that overall the surge was a success, not only because of the increase in numbers but the change in tactics. He credited the decrease in abilities of al-Qaida in Iraq to the fact that coalition forces were in the neighborhoods and that the Sons of Iraq program had made supporters of coalitions forces more recognizable.

The Pentagon PM Report

It's been a full day at the Department of Defense. In the morning Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held a round table with the press. He said that given all available evidence points to plans of the U.S. to reduce troops significantly in the next six months continuing to what he hopes will be 100,000 by the time President Bush leaves office. He also responded to an article in the Los Angeles Times saying that an upsurge in Marines to Afghanistan is not a reflection of dissatisfaction with the military performance of NATO allies there. His comments in The LA Times about concern that NATO troops were not well trained in counterinsurgency, sparked off an international reaction to his public criticism, an unusual move for Gates. The secretary was forced to back peddle today, praising allies and speaking specifically about the commitments of Canada and the Netherlands.

This afternoon the second in command in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno spent an hour with the press via video conference in Baghdad. Odierno gave an overview of progress made in Iraq in 2007 complete with charts, maps and graphs. His evaluation of the surge was a positive one, taking into account the number of attacks, specifically of IEDs (improvised explosive device), which significantly decreased after the surge began tot fully take effect over the summer. Taking note of the different scales of a chart showing coalition military casualties and Iraqi civilian deaths shows that while both are declining the lowest point for coalition causalities per month had dipped below 100 and civilian deaths had broken a floor of 1,000.

The topic of troop reduction came up often in questions with the press, he said that he wants to step down brigades gradually. He said that all troop reductions should be conditions based.  "...if we continue to see aceelerance denied, if we continue to see attacks at the same level or lower levels, if we see Iraqi security force capacity then we will decided whether we can reduce [troops] further. "

"What I hope to see as I look ahead here is that we just  do this in a very deliberate fashion. What we don't want to do is suddenly pull out a whole bunch of U.S. forces and suddenly turn things over to Iraqis I would like to see it done very slowly over time," he said.