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Timing, weaknesses in Iraqi offensive surprised Bush administration
The Bush administration was caught off-guard by the first Iraqi-led military offensive since the fall of Saddam Hussein , a weeklong thrust in southern Iraq whose paltry results have silenced talk at the Pentagon of further U.S. troop withdrawals any time soon. President Bush last week declared the offensive, which ended Sunday, "a defining moment" in Iraq's history.

That may prove to be true, but in recent days senior U.S. officials have backed away from the operation, which ended with Shiite militias still in place in Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki possibly weakened and a de facto cease-fire brokered by an Iranian general.

"There is no empirical evidence that the Iraqi forces can stand up" on their own, a senior U.S. military official in Washington said, reflecting the frustration of some at the Pentagon.

Having Iraqi forces take a leadership role in combating militias and Islamic extremists was crucial to U.S. hopes of withdrawing more American forces in Iraq and reducing the severe strains the Iraq war has put on the Army and Marine Corps .

The supposed failure of Iraqi forces to defeat rogue fighters in Basra has some in the military fearing they can no longer predict when it might be possible to reduce the number of troops to pre-surge levels. "It's more complicated now," said one officer in Iraq whose role has been critical to American planning there.

Questions remain about how much Bush and his top aides knew in advance about the offensive and whether they encouraged Maliki to confront radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. A senior U.S. lawmaker and four military officials said Tuesday that the Americans were aware in general terms of the coming offensive, but were surprised by the timing and by the Iraqis' almost immediate need for U.S. air support and other help.

One senior U.S. military commander in Iraq said the Iraqi government originally told the United States about a longer-term plan to rid Basra of rogue elements. But Maliki changed the timing, and the nature of the Iraqi operation changed, he said. "The planning was not done under our auspices at all," the American commander said. The plan changed because "the prime minister got impatient."

There's no evidence, however, that the U.S. tried to dissuade Maliki from executing either plan.

"My instinct is that we knew but did not anticipate" that American forces would be called on to help, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden stressed that he's still seeking information from the Bush administration on the matter. Biden, who'll hold hearings on Iraq over the next 10 days, spoke shortly before lawmakers were to be briefed on an updated, classified National Intelligence Estimate on security, political and economic trends in Iraq.

Another senior American military official in Baghdad said Maliki notified Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq , and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker less than two days before launching the operation. "By then it was a done deal," this official said.

The apparent misjudgment of the Iraqi security forces' capabilities and the strength of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, as well as the revived political controversy over the war, come at an inopportune moment for the White House.

Petraeus and Crocker are due to testify to Congress next week about the strategy in Iraq now that the 30,000 troops Bush ordered there in a "surge" are being withdrawn.

In the larger sense, "this is a reminder that nothing has changed," said a senior State Department official.
Posted by: Fred 2008-04-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=235859