.US General: Iraq Security Gains Tenuous
SALMAN PAK, Iraq (AP) - Security gains that have led to a significant fall in violence over the last six months are tenuous and could be lost if Iraqis become disillusioned or extremists mount a major attack, a top U.S. commander said Thursday.
Violence in Iraq has decreased by 60 percent since June, according to U.S. military figures, and the government has been sounding upbeat. The country is notably calmer than it was at the same time last year, when there were fears of all-out civil war.
"I'm very optimistic, but at the same time I'm very realistic. We have a tenuous security situation right now," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the commander of U.S. forces south of Baghdad, told The Associated Press.
Extremists still carry out dozens of attacks each week. Bombings, mortar attacks and kidnappings kill both civilians and security forces, and al-Qaida in Iraq is still dominant in certain areas.
"The enemy's still out there," Lynch said during a visit to Salman Pak, a town about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad in a region known as the "Triangle of Death" where al-Qaida is still active. "My concern is when people begin to use words like defeat. We haven't defeated the enemy; we clearly have the enemy on the run. The main focus right now is al-Qaida."
The reduction in violence has been attributed to a combination of 30,000 extra U.S. troops, a six-month cease-fire declared in August by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the work of predominantly Sunni tribal groups backed by the U.S. military. The groups - which already have more than 70,000 members - began turning against al-Qaida in Iraq in mid-2007.
Lynch said attacks in his area have fallen from about 25 a day before the summer to about six.
"But it is tenuous at best," he said. "On any given day, the security situation could go backward by some catastrophic attack, or by the local population not seeing continuing forward progress. So we just have to be sensitive about that. We have to focus on governance."
One issue is what will happen to the armed U.S.-backed groups once security is restored.
The government has said it will integrate about a third of them into Iraqi security forces.
"The other two-thirds we have to find productive work for," Lynch said. The U.S. has said that Iraq is matching $155 million the U.S. has set aside to create jobs and provide vocational training for the fighters.
"This is really a government of Iraq issue," Lynch said. "They've got to think about how do we take all these productive citizens and compensate them for the work that they're doing."
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has been uneasy about integrating the predominantly Sunni fighters - now better organized and armed - and about the possibility they could switch sides again.
But failing to provide employment for the fighters could lead them straight back into the insurgency, Lynch said.
"If indeed a concerned citizen is getting paid today and he's not getting paid tomorrow, there's a tendency of going back to doing bad things," he said. "And I don't want that to happen."
MyWay
Violence in Iraq has decreased by 60 percent since June, according to U.S. military figures, and the government has been sounding upbeat. The country is notably calmer than it was at the same time last year, when there were fears of all-out civil war.
"I'm very optimistic, but at the same time I'm very realistic. We have a tenuous security situation right now," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the commander of U.S. forces south of Baghdad, told The Associated Press.
Extremists still carry out dozens of attacks each week. Bombings, mortar attacks and kidnappings kill both civilians and security forces, and al-Qaida in Iraq is still dominant in certain areas.
"The enemy's still out there," Lynch said during a visit to Salman Pak, a town about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad in a region known as the "Triangle of Death" where al-Qaida is still active. "My concern is when people begin to use words like defeat. We haven't defeated the enemy; we clearly have the enemy on the run. The main focus right now is al-Qaida."
The reduction in violence has been attributed to a combination of 30,000 extra U.S. troops, a six-month cease-fire declared in August by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the work of predominantly Sunni tribal groups backed by the U.S. military. The groups - which already have more than 70,000 members - began turning against al-Qaida in Iraq in mid-2007.
Lynch said attacks in his area have fallen from about 25 a day before the summer to about six.
"But it is tenuous at best," he said. "On any given day, the security situation could go backward by some catastrophic attack, or by the local population not seeing continuing forward progress. So we just have to be sensitive about that. We have to focus on governance."
One issue is what will happen to the armed U.S.-backed groups once security is restored.
The government has said it will integrate about a third of them into Iraqi security forces.
"The other two-thirds we have to find productive work for," Lynch said. The U.S. has said that Iraq is matching $155 million the U.S. has set aside to create jobs and provide vocational training for the fighters.
"This is really a government of Iraq issue," Lynch said. "They've got to think about how do we take all these productive citizens and compensate them for the work that they're doing."
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has been uneasy about integrating the predominantly Sunni fighters - now better organized and armed - and about the possibility they could switch sides again.
But failing to provide employment for the fighters could lead them straight back into the insurgency, Lynch said.
"If indeed a concerned citizen is getting paid today and he's not getting paid tomorrow, there's a tendency of going back to doing bad things," he said. "And I don't want that to happen."
MyWay
posted by madtom at 11:35 PM
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