Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
March 25, 2008
Pg. 1
President and Petraeus Discuss Strategy as Number of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq Hits 4,000
By Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writers
As the death toll for American troops in Iraq reached 4,000, President Bush conferred yesterday with top U.S. officials in Washington and in Baghdad and vowed in a public statement that the outcome of the war "will merit the sacrifice."
Bush held a two-hour videoconference with Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. In congressional testimony scheduled for April, they are expected to describe continued but slow improvement in military and political conditions, even as recent weeks have seen an increase in suicide bombings, along with Sunday's renewal of rocket attacks on Baghdad's Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located.
Among the wounded in four separate attacks were an American military contractor and an embassy employee from Jordan, both of whom remain in serious condition, a U.S. official in Baghdad said. Military officials said the munitions were Iranian-made, fired from northeastern Baghdad by renegade Shiite militia groups.
Late Sunday night, the U.S. command in Baghdad announced that four soldiers had been killed by a makeshift bomb in southern Baghdad, bringing the total number of U.S. troops killed to 4,000 since the war began in March 2003. Dozens of Iraqis were also killed in violence around the country Sunday.
Overall attacks in Iraq continue to decline, but the decrease has slowed over the past three months and has begun to plateau -- car bombings have decreased, but suicide bombings have increased. Petraeus plans to tell Congress that the withdrawal of U.S. forces that began late last year -- and has now reached about 9,000 troops -- will continue until the end of July, with three additional brigades expected to be withdrawn without replacement.
At that point, Petraeus has said, he will stop removing forces pending what aides called an "evaluation" of whether Iraqi forces and remaining U.S. troops can sustain lower levels of violence. "We have every desire to continue with the withdrawal of forces," one military official said. "The issue will be once we remove over 25 percent of combat power plus other associated units . . . we let the dust settle . . . and look to see where we're at," he said, adding that the evaluation period would probably be no shorter than six weeks.
Although administration officials have said that the withdrawals by July should leave U.S. troop strength in Iraq about where it was last spring -- approximately 130,000 -- the military official said the net number remaining may be larger. "They're in the process now of trying to scrub the numbers," he said. "Figuring out boots on the ground is difficult because . . . units come in at different sizes, people have left, people have been wounded."
There are similar difficulties, he said, in determining the "battlefield geometry" that will enable the withdrawal of entire combat brigades. Brigades are seldom deployed intact, and their battalions are often scattered. While one battalion could be withdrawn without replacement, others may have to be replaced by U.S. or Iraqi forces from elsewhere.
During his testimony on April 8 and 9, Petraeus expects to present Congress with firm numbers on how many U.S. troops will leave Iraq and how many will remain by the end of July.
Crocker, who in previous testimony has cautioned against hopes of rapid progress, is expected to describe some political and economic achievements but to say that much work remains. In a mid-March interview with The Washington Post, he described Iraqi political and economic institutions as "like everything else here, still very much under development."
Another senior U.S. diplomat offered positive indicators yesterday, saying that Iraqis are "spending increasingly more money than we are" on reconstruction and some military programs. "We're not starting any new projects and [the Iraqis] are getting incrementally better," he said. Iraq's "Arab neighbors are gradually engaging, although not enough. They're not embracing Maliki the way they ought to," he added, referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
After speaking with Petraeus and Crocker yesterday morning from the White House, Bush attended a briefing by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department on cooperation between military and civilian officials in Iraq and elsewhere. In a statement to reporters, he spoke of the U.S. civilians who have died in Iraq and said: "I will vow so long as I am president to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain."
Bush will attend a similar briefing by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and military leaders today at the Pentagon, but administration officials said they do not expect any new decisions or departures from current policy.
One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that after months of friction among civilian and military leaders -- including over concerns about overall stress on the military -- there is little debate over the basic Iraq strategy for the next six months. The only real question, he said, is how long the "pause" in withdrawals after July will last.
In Turkey yesterday, Vice President Cheney told ABC News that "there's no reason now to decide what the force level is going to be in December of '08." The criterion, he said, "is how do we make certain we succeed in Iraq? It may be that we can make judgments about reductions down the road. . . . But I don't think [Bush] is likely to want to try to say now what the force level ought to be at the end of the year."
March 25, 2008
Pg. 1
President and Petraeus Discuss Strategy as Number of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq Hits 4,000
By Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writers
As the death toll for American troops in Iraq reached 4,000, President Bush conferred yesterday with top U.S. officials in Washington and in Baghdad and vowed in a public statement that the outcome of the war "will merit the sacrifice."
Bush held a two-hour videoconference with Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. In congressional testimony scheduled for April, they are expected to describe continued but slow improvement in military and political conditions, even as recent weeks have seen an increase in suicide bombings, along with Sunday's renewal of rocket attacks on Baghdad's Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located.
Among the wounded in four separate attacks were an American military contractor and an embassy employee from Jordan, both of whom remain in serious condition, a U.S. official in Baghdad said. Military officials said the munitions were Iranian-made, fired from northeastern Baghdad by renegade Shiite militia groups.
Late Sunday night, the U.S. command in Baghdad announced that four soldiers had been killed by a makeshift bomb in southern Baghdad, bringing the total number of U.S. troops killed to 4,000 since the war began in March 2003. Dozens of Iraqis were also killed in violence around the country Sunday.
Overall attacks in Iraq continue to decline, but the decrease has slowed over the past three months and has begun to plateau -- car bombings have decreased, but suicide bombings have increased. Petraeus plans to tell Congress that the withdrawal of U.S. forces that began late last year -- and has now reached about 9,000 troops -- will continue until the end of July, with three additional brigades expected to be withdrawn without replacement.
At that point, Petraeus has said, he will stop removing forces pending what aides called an "evaluation" of whether Iraqi forces and remaining U.S. troops can sustain lower levels of violence. "We have every desire to continue with the withdrawal of forces," one military official said. "The issue will be once we remove over 25 percent of combat power plus other associated units . . . we let the dust settle . . . and look to see where we're at," he said, adding that the evaluation period would probably be no shorter than six weeks.
Although administration officials have said that the withdrawals by July should leave U.S. troop strength in Iraq about where it was last spring -- approximately 130,000 -- the military official said the net number remaining may be larger. "They're in the process now of trying to scrub the numbers," he said. "Figuring out boots on the ground is difficult because . . . units come in at different sizes, people have left, people have been wounded."
There are similar difficulties, he said, in determining the "battlefield geometry" that will enable the withdrawal of entire combat brigades. Brigades are seldom deployed intact, and their battalions are often scattered. While one battalion could be withdrawn without replacement, others may have to be replaced by U.S. or Iraqi forces from elsewhere.
During his testimony on April 8 and 9, Petraeus expects to present Congress with firm numbers on how many U.S. troops will leave Iraq and how many will remain by the end of July.
Crocker, who in previous testimony has cautioned against hopes of rapid progress, is expected to describe some political and economic achievements but to say that much work remains. In a mid-March interview with The Washington Post, he described Iraqi political and economic institutions as "like everything else here, still very much under development."
Another senior U.S. diplomat offered positive indicators yesterday, saying that Iraqis are "spending increasingly more money than we are" on reconstruction and some military programs. "We're not starting any new projects and [the Iraqis] are getting incrementally better," he said. Iraq's "Arab neighbors are gradually engaging, although not enough. They're not embracing Maliki the way they ought to," he added, referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
After speaking with Petraeus and Crocker yesterday morning from the White House, Bush attended a briefing by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department on cooperation between military and civilian officials in Iraq and elsewhere. In a statement to reporters, he spoke of the U.S. civilians who have died in Iraq and said: "I will vow so long as I am president to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain."
Bush will attend a similar briefing by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and military leaders today at the Pentagon, but administration officials said they do not expect any new decisions or departures from current policy.
One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that after months of friction among civilian and military leaders -- including over concerns about overall stress on the military -- there is little debate over the basic Iraq strategy for the next six months. The only real question, he said, is how long the "pause" in withdrawals after July will last.
In Turkey yesterday, Vice President Cheney told ABC News that "there's no reason now to decide what the force level is going to be in December of '08." The criterion, he said, "is how do we make certain we succeed in Iraq? It may be that we can make judgments about reductions down the road. . . . But I don't think [Bush] is likely to want to try to say now what the force level ought to be at the end of the year."