will this ever end ?
- From: "jumil mosquida" <socculturefilipino@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 31 May 2006 07:02:42 -0700
they never learn .
im sure 50 years from now some knucklehead would do the same thing.
happened in the pinas, happened in vnam, happened in iraq .......
Pentagon Report Gives Mixed Outlook on Iraq
Sunni Insurgency Likely to Remain Strong Through 2006
By ROBERT BURNS, AP
WASHINGTON (May 31) - The Sunni Arab heart of the Iraqi insurgency
seems likely to hold its strength the rest of the year, and some of its
leaders are now collaborating with al-Qaida terrorists, the Pentagon
said Tuesday.
Aaron Allmon, US Air Force / ZUMA Press
The U.S. military said about 1,500 soldiers from an armored brigade on
standby in Kuwait will be moved to Iraq, raising the number of U.S.
military brigades in Iraq from 15 to 16.
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In a report assessing the situation in Iraq, required quarterly by
Congress, the Pentagon painted a mixed picture on a day when the U.S.
military command in Baghdad said 1,500 more combat troops have arrived
in the country. The extra troops are part of an intensified effort to
wrest control of the provincial capital of Ramadi from insurgents.
The report to Congress offered a relatively dim picture of economic
progress, with few gains in improving basic services like electricity,
and it provided no promises of U.S. troop reductions anytime soon.
On the other hand, it said the Iraqi army is gaining strength and
taking lead responsibility for security in more areas.
The U.S. government has struggled for three years to understand the
shadowy insurgency in Iraq, which began in the Sunni Triangle west and
north of Baghdad. In Tuesday's report, the Pentagon said the
"rejectionists" who are a key element of the insurgency are holding
their own against U.S. and Iraqi forces.
"MNF-I expects that rejectionist strength will likely remain steady
throughout 2006, but that their appeal and motivation for continued
violent action will begin to wane in early 2007," the report said. The
term MNF-I refers to the Multinational Force-Iraq, the top American
military command in Baghdad.
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It also said for the first time that the Sunnis who reject the
U.S.-based government are collaborating with al-Qaida.
"Some hardline Sunni rejectionists have joined al-Qaida in Iraq in
recent months, increasing the terrorists' attack options," the report
said.
It said a separate element of the insurgency that U.S. officials
describe as former loyalists of the Saddam Hussein regime remains an
important enabler of the violence in Iraq. But the Saddam loyalists
have "mostly splintered" into other groups. As a result, they are now
"largely irrelevant" as a threat to the fledgling Iraqi government,
said Lt. Gen. Victor E. Renuart, the head of strategic plans and policy
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who helped prepare the report.
The report also said that while security in much of Iraq has improved,
total attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces have increased in recent
months, following the Feb. 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.
President Bush said he remained hopeful that the new Iraqi government
will succeed in stabilizing the country.
"Although there's been some very difficult times for the Iraqi people,
I'm impressed by the courage of the leadership, impressed by the
determination of the people," Bush said Tuesday in the Oval Office
during the credentialing ceremony for Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's
ambassador to the United States.
The troop move announced Tuesday involves about 1,500 soldiers from an
armored brigade on standby in Kuwait and reflects a deteriorating
security situation in the volatile provincial capital of Ramadi. It
raises the number of U.S. military brigades in Iraq from 15 to 16 -
just five months after the number was cut from 17 to 15. A brigade has
at least 3,500 troops.
The administration is under election-year pressure to demonstrate
concrete progress in Iraq and to begin reducing U.S. troop levels at a
time when the Army and Marines in particular are stretched thin by war
deployments.
Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq watcher with the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said Tuesday there is no clear basis for
believing U.S. troop levels can be reduced anytime soon without risking
further deterioration in the security situation. He said the best
measure of progress is not the number of U.S. troops in Iraq but the
degree to which their role in counterinsurgency operations is assumed
by Iraqis.
"I think, in honesty, that now looks a lot more like 2007 at the
earliest (for) really having serious reductions in the U.S. combat role
(and) being certain that the U.S. casualty levels are going down on a
lasting basis and being able to reduce the costs of the war," Cordesman
said in a telephone interview.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there are 130,000 U.S. troops in
Iraq. It was not clear whether that included the 1,500 soldiers from
two battalions of the 2nd brigade of the 1st Armored Division whose
deployment to the Ramadi area was described as "short term" in a U.S.
military statement from Baghdad.
A defense official said the two battalions were expected to be in Anbar
for a maximum of four months, operating as part of a Marine force. The
official was not authorized to discuss such details and so spoke on
condition of anonymity.
A third battalion from the brigade in Kuwait was sent to Baghdad in
March as part of a broader plan to improve security in the capital
during the formation of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's new cabinet.
That cabinet was announced and put in place more than a week ago but
still lacks ministers of defense and interior, who control the Iraqi
army and police. Whitman said that battalion is still operating in the
Baghdad area.
05-31-06 00
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