| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Insurgent capabilities neutralized in Baghdad |
| 2005-07-09 |
| U.S. and Iraqi forces have "mostly eliminated" the ability of insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity attacks in Baghdad (search), the top U.S. commander in the Iraqi capital said Friday. Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr. (search) said in a video-teleconference interview from Baghdad with reporters at the Pentagon that offensive operations by U.S. and Iraqi troops in recent weeks had sharply reduced the number of insurgent bombings. But he cautioned against concluding that the insurgency has been broken. "It's very difficult to know it's over," Webster said. There were 14 to 21 car bombings per week in Baghdad before the May 22 start of the U.S. portion of the latest offensive, dubbed Operation Lightning (search), he said. That has dropped to about seven or eight a week now, Webster said, attributing the improvement to the disruption of insurgent cells and the availability of more and better intelligence. "There are some more threats ahead," he said. "I do believe, however, that the ability of these insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity operations as they did last year, we've mostly eliminated that." He said that about 1,700 suspected insurgents had been captured during Operation Lightning, including 51 foreigners. Despite those gains, Webster said the future course of the insurgency was uncertain. "When you're talking about an insurgency in a country like this where the borders are still rather porous and folks can still come in and there is money available to hire local criminals and others to participate in the fight, it is very difficult to get a day-to-day estimate of the number of people you're fighting," he said. On the other hand, he predicted that, "in the next couple of months we will not see sustained, long bloody months in Baghdad." Webster painted a remarkably positive picture of the prospects for improving security in Baghdad. By October, when Iraqis are scheduled to vote on a new constitution, there should be a full division of Iraqi army soldiers, numbering about 18,000, sufficiently trained to take the lead in securing the Iraqi capital, he said. There are now about 15,000 Iraqi soldiers, in various stages of training, in the Baghdad area that Webster commands. Of those, about one-third are sufficiently trained to control territory in the capital city, he said. Webster's force, led by the 3rd Infantry Division, consists of about 30,000 troops — all but 1,000 of which are Americans. The non-U.S. troops are from Macedonia, Estonia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #6 kind of goes along with zawkawi's rant that he 's having trouble finding male splodeydopes--and his spiritual-spit-leader's advice to him to take the jihad elseware--something's happening here--even if the c.o is a doofus--he'd be an idiot to spout this positive spin unless he knew something's up--btw the red on red stuff and the change in the "list" voting procedures so that sunnis get a piece of the pie are very telling--the wind up will be confused process not a ceremony on the u.s.s. missouri |
| Posted by: SON OF TOLUI 2005-07-09 12:01 |
| #5 Feather merchants have been the Bane of militaries since at least as far back as the Roman Empire.As dispicable as they are they seem to be a fact of military life. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-07-09 07:58 |
| #4 I'm a REMF at the Palace in the IZ, a civilian (also on a one-year stint, but thinking of extending through the elections in Dec/Jan). What Simon says here tracks with a lot of scattered anecdotal data I've been hearing for over a year from various (all Army) types. Not the vitriol directed at senior brass (which I can't dispute from my perspective), but specific complaints about a lack of aggressiveness and seriousness in dealing with the enemy. It's the best military the world has ever seen, but it's not neccessarily being applied in the most effective manner. As to the "success" of any sort of terrorist attack here, I wonder whether that term means much apart from actual impact on the political process. If 10 car bombs kill X number of grandmothers and police recruits in a 2 week period, and the next day the TNA reports out a constitution with reasonable support from Kurd, Shi'a, and establishment Sunni leadership -- what was the significance of the car bombs? I'm tempted to say that the car bombs are exactly like the huge number of "successful" kamikaze hits on US Navy ships off Okinawa -- lots of blood and ships sunk/damaged, zero impact on the outcome of the operation. Much like the WWII kamikazes, the "insurgents" here are probably only affecting the cost and timetable of their defeat here -- not averting the defeat itself. |
| Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2005-07-09 05:42 |
| #3 Thanks Verlaine, been enjoying your comments for a while now. Is your job in the Zone independant from the 1 year rotation? Simple Simon, Thanks for being there. please come back and tell us more. |
| Posted by: Red Dog 2005-07-09 03:29 |
| #2 Gen. Webster is an idiot. I should know, I am an infantryman assigned to one of his subordinate units. Webster is a typical officer/politician, not at all interested in winning a war, just interested in not losing it while his unit is on the clock. Bombing in Baghdad has been cyclical for the last couple of years. It hits high points around key religious holidays and historical events, and then cools off. He should know this, but he's too busy sitting on his fat ass up in Camp Victory, congratulating himself on what a fine job he's done and speculating on what higher command he's now entitled to. Furthermore, the insurgency consists of various groups with conflicting aims. The domestic insurgents seem to be quiescent at present, true, but recently there was a spectacularly successful series of VBIED attacks perpetrated by a group of Syrian fighters. Syrians, Iranians, Somalis, Palestinians, we've got ourselves a proper witches' brew boiling here. This rant isn't to say that we can't win, or that given time we won't win. What my point is is that we won't win as long as useless placesitters, spineless politicians, and weaseley lawyers pretending to be senior officers are in charge. This Army has lots of warriors. Good, honorable, hard working warriors. Men who would rather be out in the fight than behind the walls of our FOBs. But like every Socialist boondoggle, the Army is run by careerist weasels who don't give a fiddler's fart if American soldiers die, just as long as it doesn't affect their next OER. And though they would never pick up a rifle or a shovel they will do yeoman's work in protecting their precious fiefdoms and their mediocracies from better men. Resign your commission and leave my Army you piece of crap. |
| Posted by: Simple Simon 2005-07-09 03:16 |
| #1 I didn't bother to check, but this is presumably a wire-service dispatch. Thus the "remarkably positive picture" crack. It's only "remarkably positive" if you don't understand military affairs, haven't been paying attention, tend to view things through a wildly distorted prism, and and aren't too sharp to begin with. Things have been markedly better for some time, at least WRT to car bombs. Vest bombs, however, are up sharply -- more good news, though the media would never stumble across that bit of common sense. The idiots are going to vest bombs (far less powerful, and easier to defense in most situations) because they HAVE TO. But when the vest bomb trend finally hits the headlines, it will be marketed as the latest impressive innovation of an "adaptive, sophisticated" enemy, not the latest desperate change in tactics by a force that has lost the initiative. |
| Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2005-07-09 03:01 |