Smashing Success: Few Months Of Surge Uncovers More Caches Than All Of Last Year
USA Today:
Coalition forces have uncovered more insurgent weapons caches in the first six months of this year than the entire previous year, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Monday.
The record number of seizures is due largely to a new U.S. strategy that has moved American forces off bases and into neighborhoods, generating more tips from civilians. Offensives have also disrupted insurgent sanctuaries, Petraeus said.
Uncovering weapons caches are one of several signs of recent military progress, Petraeus said. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will travel to Washington in September to give an assessment of the new strategy in Iraq, which is backed by an additional 30,000 American troops.
“We feel as if we have momentum, tactical momentum,” Petraeus said in a telephone interview from Baghdad.
Petraeus cautioned that challenges remain and insurgent groups maintain the ability to carry out large attacks. “I don’t want to paint a rosy picture,” he said.
Uncovering the caches, which can include everything from rockets and surface-to-air missiles to assault weapons and components for roadside bombs, gets weapons out of the hands of insurgents.
It’s also a sign of how prevalent weapons and ammunition are in Iraq. The numbers of arms caches uncovered so far this year is 3,698, up from 2,726 last year, according to the military command in Iraq. “It’s staggering,” Petraeus said.
Despite tactical success on the battlefield, Iraq’s national government has made almost no progress in passing legislation that would help win Sunni support for Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.
The legislation is included in the 18 military and political benchmarks Congress will be using to measure progress in Iraq. On Monday, Iraq’s parliament adjourned for a month despite the lack of progress.
Petraeus will likely highlight progress on reconciliation at the local level when he comes to Washington. A growing movement of mainly Sunni groups are fed up with violence and a strict interpretation of Islam and have turned on al-Qaeda, he said.
The U.S. military is not arming the groups but is providing support in other ways, including paying salaries for some, Petraeus said. The goal is for the groups to eventually become part of Iraq’s security forces. “I think there is a mind-set shift among Sunni Arabs,” Petraeus said.
More recently, locals have begun turning on Shiite extremists in parts of heavily Shiite southern Iraq, Petraeus said.
Patreus could include recommendations on troop levels as part of his assessment.
If no action is taken, the additional forces would remain until next spring. “We all know the surge is going to end,” Petraeus said.
The question is whether reductions will be made before then.
Petraeus said he is still studying troop levels, but any drawdown will need to be designed so as not to lose momentum, Petraeus said. “It is about … not surrendering the gains we have made,” he said.
The report in September will likely be an interim assessment and not a final report on whether the new strategy has failed or succeeded. The last of the additional forces arrived in Iraq in June.
“That’s not a whole lot of time to implement and assess,” said Col. Timothy Reese, director of the Combat Studies Institute in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. “It won’t be obviously a failure, and it won’t be obviously a success.”
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Great job, troops!! Even the MSM is beginning to sort-of, kind-of support the surge. I mean I just saw CNN paint a not-so rosy picture of Iraq after an early withdrawal.
August 8th, 2007 at 4:32 amDoes anyone know what happens to the weapons seized? Do they go back to the Iraqi military or police or are they destroyed? It would be a shame if they are not used against the terrorists.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:44 amYeah, but between this story and the record number of troops killed in July, which one will be front page of the Slimes? Yep, that was a rhetorical question. For those of you in Rio Linda, that means we already know the answer.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:48 amThe record number of troops killed in July dropped to their lowest level in 8 months. Anyway, I was reading Jim Geraghty at NRO and the following e-mail was sent to him regarding Iraq’s national government. I thought it makes a lot of sense and appears to be working:
Stuart Koehl of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS writes in with a good point:
The error being made—on your part as well as by others—is assuming that progress can only be made at the level of the national government. In fact, under the Iraqi constitution, the national government is rather weak, while traditionally real political power has been wielded on the local and regional level. And it is precisely at the local and regional level that we see real progress being made with regard both to power sharing and national reconciliation. Because of the social and constitutional structure of Iraq, political progress cannot be imposed from the top-down, but must percolate from the bottom up. To some extent, the members of the national assembly and the unity government are merely play-acting, posturing for the cameras until such time as a consensus emerges on the local level that will prompt them to act. The success of our counter-insurgency effort on the political front is not measured in the assembly chamber, but in the tribal councils. And there, we are definitely winning.
August 8th, 2007 at 6:40 amThe son-in-law heads back there tomorrow. He gives the Patraeus reprot about a 50-50 because the political problems will torpedo the progress of the military. Crude rarely gets to it’s end point for sale as it’s taped by local Sheiks for black market sales, same with water, power. The got to get a handle on that before any shiney numbers get on the Generals report.
August 8th, 2007 at 9:11 amTanicacid: Thank your son-in-law for his service from me. However, I disagree with you slightly. I believe Petraeus will recognize the ground up reconciliation taking place. Our job in combatting this “no political progress” crap is to show that even in a civilized country (such as ours), the federal (or national) government sucks. As I have said here and elsewhere, we have a Congress that couldn’t find their ass with a road map. We need to drum beat that. Iraq is an incredible new country (technically) and needs time to work out the kinks. We’ve been around for over 200 years and I’m not a historian, but I’m pretty sure we had a civil war well after our consititution was written. Iraq needs time, there is no other options that I can see. God Bless America.
August 8th, 2007 at 10:40 am