Operations in Iraq
...There is much more including discussion of the bombing of the shrine, most of which has already been in news reports.
The end state remains the same: an Iraq that's at peace with its neighbors, that's an ally in the war on terror, that has a representative government that respects the human rights of all Iraqis, that has a security force that can maintain domestic order and deny Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists.
...What we're seeing across Iraq is we're seeing that the police forces are indeed gaining capability and gaining public confidence. There are today 123,000 members of the Iraqi police service trained and equipped, and they continue to grow in not just quantity but in quality and capabilities. We're working hard as the multinational force and the coalition to embed police trainers with the Iraqi police, and to give them more detailed training on a variety of tasks. But we're seeing the police forces gaining capability and gaining public confidence.
We continue to be amazed with the capabilities of the Iraqi army, their performance and their ability to conduct, plan and execute independent missions.
Last week, 521 operations, company and above, across Iraq; 25 percent of those, 130 of them, were independent operations by the Iraqi security forces, operations that they, based on intelligence, planned and executed. And they continue to improve in capability at company level and above.
We're looking for and we're seeing increased cooperation between the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police. We've said all along that last year we focused on the Iraqi army by design, and today there are two Iraqi army divisions, 10 Iraqi army brigades and 43 Iraqi army battalions that own battlespace in Iraq and are leading counterinsurgency operations. This year is the year of the police, and we're going to focus on improving capabilities of the Iraqi police force. Part of that is improving the coordination and cooperation between the Iraqi security force elements -- the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army -- and we're seeing detailed indications of improvement in cooperation.
And even though the terrorists continue to conduct these horrific attacks against the people of Iraq, there's no shortage of recruits either for the Iraqi army or for the Iraqi police. You've got to applaud the courage and conviction of the Iraqi people. Remember, there are 26 million Iraqis, on or about, and we believe that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Iraqi population are part of the insurgency, and the rest of them want to have a place where they can go to work, they can send their kids to school, they can have a job and flourish in a democratic society. And as a result of that, they standing in recruiting lines to join both the police and the army. So we see the improvement of the Iraqi security force capabilities on a general basis continuing to improve.
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... We're dealing with a cowardly insurgency. And what they've done now is they've shifted their sight group, their target, to the Iraqi civilians and the Iraqi security force and away from the coalition. We're continuing to see a downward trend in coalition casualties.
Last week we saw an increase in VBIEDs, 12 last week, 10 the week before. And these VBIEDs are targeted against Iraqi civilians. Sixty percent of the casualties last week were Iraqi civilians. Innocent civilians. Iraqi men, women and children who were trying to go about their day-to-day business, and they were attacked by the insurgency using these VBIEDs. Increase in suicide bombs last week, as well. Four last week, three from the week prior.
One of the things that we're seeing as a trend with IEDs is there are more of them in place but there are more of them found and cleared. What we're seeing is, the capabilities they need to create effective IEDs -- the bombmakers, the proper munitions, the proper supplies -- we have depleted those capabilities, so we're seeing a lot of poorly emplaced, poorly functioning IEDs, to the point where we are indeed finding and clearing more than 40 percent of the ones we encounter on the streets of Iraq.
And we continue to see this fracturing, the fracturing between the terrorists and foreign fighters and local insurgent groups. And I'm going to talk to you about that in some detail because it's very important that you understand what we're seeing, but in general terms, we're seeing the people of Iraq -- to include the local insurgency -- telling Zarqawi and the terrorists and foreign fighters, "We've had enough. Get out of our country. This is not your area, this is not your training ground, this is not going to be an Islamic caliphate from which you can spread violence across the region."
Counterinsurgency operations average nine years. If you study history, successful counterinsurgency operations took at least nine years. We're three years into this operation.
And it's not just about kinetic operations. It's not just about capable security forces that can defeat a less capable insurgency. It's about improving the government's capability. It's about improving the economic situation. It's about improving the communication across Iraq. And we're seeing improvements in that area as well.
We are deeply involved, as the coalition, as well as the embassy, on working through communication between local leaders, provincial leaders and national leaders. And we're seeing this overwhelming desire on the part of the leaderships to be Iraqi nationalists, Iraqi nationalists. And we're seeing much better communication from the national level through the provincial level down to the local level.
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On the 11th of February, we conducted an operation. We had intelligence that Zarqawi and al Qaeda in Iraq were planning an operation against a specific tribe out in Al Anbar, and on the 11th of February we conducted this operation. As part of the operation, we moved to detain an individual, and we watched that individual burying something as we moved to him. We uncovered what he was burying, and we came up with letters, thumb drives, those kinds of things.
This individual was clearly an al Qaeda operative here in Iraq. He wasn't one of the leaders, he was one of the led. And in the packet there were a variety of written letters, handwritten notes and, as I say, a thumb drive. And you'll get copies of these letters.
But in general terms, as you read it, here's what you're going to see. You're going to see the led of al Qaeda in Iraq talking to their leadership and saying: Hey, in Al Anbar we got this problem. The tribal sheikhs have joined against us. They are now attacking us. We, the insurgency, we, the terrorists and foreign fighters, have become their enemy.
And as I've told you, in Al Anbar since September the local insurgents have killed six of the leaders of Zarqawi's network in Iraq. And in Ramadi, they're blocking the town to keep the terrorists and foreign fighters from coming in.
These letters, written by the operatives inside of Iraq to their leaders, are saying: Hey, they have massed against us and we have to do something about it. And what they said they got to do about it is they've got to do essentially two major things. They got to change their tactics. This is what the led was pleading to the leaders. He said: We got to quit attacking and killing the popular people because it's causing the locals to rise up against us. Our attacks ought to be against the less popular people. And then he's saying -- led to the leader -- he says: We got to quit attacking the villages because the villages have united against us, and we got to attack the major cities where we can conduct attacks and get away from them.
They say in the letters that: We got to continue to work to drive a wedge between the Shi'a population and the Sunni population because that's what's forming the basis for this unity government.
So we contend what we saw yesterday in Samarra was an indication of what's happening with the terrorists and foreign fighters. They can't stand the idea of a democratic Iraq. They can't stand it. So as a result of that, they think: Okay, they had the elections, they're forming their government. What can we do? Let's inflame sectarian violence. Let's not do it in the villages because in the villages they're going to mass against us. Let's do it in the cities, like Samarra. And they're thinking: What can we do, what can we attack that's not going to be a significant attack against the Shi'a population, but rather, attacking one of their most important things. And they said: Let's attack that shrine. Let's attack the Golden Mosque in Samarra and then see what happens. And that's what we experienced yesterday.
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The weapon of choice for Zarqawi terrorists and foreign fighters are suicide bombers. Remember, if you were to add up all the group that we believe to be terrorists and foreign fighters, that's a very, very small group, but they are responsible for all the suicide attacks across Iraq, and we believe to be responsible for this attack against the Golden Mosque yesterday.
The Iraqi rejectionist group in the middle -- their weapon of choice -- the larger group -- their weapon of choice is IEDs.
So we have mounted specific operations to kill or capture bombmakers and to take out the munitions that the insurgents need to build these IEDs with great effect.
I mean, I think you all get tired of me showing pictures of caches that we've found, but every Thursday I highlight the amount of munitions we've taken off the battlefield.
So given the fact that they're bombmakers, the guys who've got the experience are being killed or captured, and their munitions that they want are being taken away from them, they've now resorted to people to make these IEDs, who candidly have less idea of what of they're doing, and people to then place the IEDs, who candidly have less idea of what they're doing. So IEDs, in general, have become ineffective.
Now, we've created in our own operations detailed training on how to find IEDs, advanced technology to counter the IEDs, and as I say, deliver operations against the bombmakers to counter their capability. So we have reached a point where the IEDs on the battlefield, 40 percent of them are being found and cleared.
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