2 Markets, Of Varying Security, Highlight Challenge For U.S. Troops In Iraq

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
March 8, 2008
Pg. 6
By Thom Shanker
HAWIJA, Iraq — As Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sits down over the coming days to prepare his formal recommendation to President Bush on future troop levels in Iraq, he will reflect on his visits to two markets.
On a trip this week, Admiral Mullen first walked the Airport Road market in Dora, a neighborhood of south Baghdad. What had been an area firmly in the grip of insurgent violence is now a showcase for the American strategy of clear, hold and rebuild, with calm purchased by an increase in American and Iraqi troops and by tall concrete blast walls.
Admiral Mullen saw commerce blooming, the sidewalks filled with shoppers, including women and children. The market was safe enough for America’s highest-ranking military officer to stroll for an hour with only a modest security detail.
But he encountered a far more fragile sense of security a day later at a market here, in the north of Iraq, the region where more than 60 percent of all attacks nationwide now occur as insurgents and terrorists have been pushed from Baghdad and the surrounding belt of villages by the troop increase.
Hawija has been cleared of fighters belonging to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence says is foreign led. The numbers of Iraqi Army soldiers and police officers are growing here, as are the ranks of Sunni guardsmen, some even former insurgents, who have allied with American efforts to drive out Qaeda fighters.
Yet, calm remains sufficiently suspect that Admiral Mullen walked within a large cordon of well-armed American and Iraqi foot soldiers (although some of the Iraqis had to be reminded to keep their rifle barrels pointed at the ground while on patrol, and not waving occasionally in the direction of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs).
But that was only the inner layer of security that included rooftop snipers, Apache and Kiowa helicopters, remote-controlled Predator reconnaissance aircraft and even an F-16 fighter overhead. “A few weeks ago, you or I could not have walked here on the streets of Hawija,” Admiral Mullen said. He also acknowledged, though, that while “security is dramatically improved, it clearly remains fragile.”
In several interviews over five days of travel, ending Wednesday, Admiral Mullen repeatedly said he had not made up his mind on what recommendation he would offer the president on the way ahead in Iraq. “Honestly, I am not there yet,” he said.
But by his actions and comments, the chairman gave ample evidence that his thinking was closely aligned with that of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Philosophically, Admiral Mullen is committed to getting more American troops out of Iraq before the end of the year. But he and other commanders are trying to come up with ways to do that without sacrificing improvements secured with the toil and lives of American troops, including the five extra combat brigades scheduled to leave by July.
“An Iraq in chaos would be extremely dangerous for all of us,” Admiral Mullen said, stressing that his recommendation would reflect the “need to sustain these efforts to achieve success over time.”
As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen is also responsible for managing risks across this region and around the globe, which means freeing up forces from Iraq as rapidly as possible to assure the military can pivot to another crisis.
As he visited bases, training centers and neighborhoods across Iraq, Admiral Mullen expressed frustration that the Iraqi leadership was not doing enough to cement security gains in the provinces. “Dora and Hawija brought this out, that the central government must be in contact with, and engaged with, the local community,” he said. “I went into many of the shops. They need sewage services. They need water. They need electricity.”
His walking tours of the two markets also proved that there continued to be wrangling over sufficient troops for the war.
Baghdad has been defined as the American center of gravity, with the five brigades of reinforcements focusing their efforts there. The Bush administration said it needed to make Baghdad secure to accomplish its objectives; that meant it needed the north of Iraq just to hold steady.
The fight in the north, where most of the fighting is under way today, especially in Mosul, is thin of American troops. It is what the military calls an “economy of force” mission. That thinning of American troops, and the necessary reliance on Iraqi forces to step into the fight, certainly foreshadows the future of the American mission across the nation.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, met several times with Admiral Mullen during his tour of Iraq and declared that the “key is to hang on to what you’ve got.”
Indicating that the American focus will remain on security in the capital after the extra brigades leave in July, he cautioned against an “eagerness to go after something new,” if that put at risk gains achieved by the troop increase.
In an interview, General Petraeus said that when he made his separate reports to Congress and the president in April, his recommendation on future troop levels would be based on such criteria as numbers of attacks nationwide; American combat deaths and injuries; Iraqi civilian and security forces losses; and the ability and size of the Iraqi police force and army.
“If the population supports what we want to do, it won’t let Al Qaeda put roots down,” he said.
 
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