Iraq report hints: more time needed By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer

Iraq report hints: more time needed By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 53 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - Anyone who still wonders what America's top two officials in Baghdad will report to Congress next month just hasn't been listening.

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The military and diplomatic public relations machines are running full bore. The message: "Things are getting better, but we need more time."

Pushing that assessment most eloquently and fervently is Ambassador Ryan Crocker, a career diplomat and one of the State Department's most seasoned Mideast hands.

He's polishing his report to Congress in every encounter with reporters and does not shy from talking about the difficult task he will face this fall in Capitol Hill committee rooms.

"I don't think any service is done either in Iraq or the U.S. by saying, 'It's going to be OK by November.' This is hard," he said in a recent interview. "There is tremendous damage that's been done physically, politically, socially, and it's going to take time to repair."

"That's first. Second, a sober look at the consequences of what other courses of action can be. Not to paint nightmare scenarios ... but just to think through, what could happen should we decide we really don't want to carry forward (in Iraq) anymore."

The top U.S. general in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, speaks more obliquely — but just as strongly — about not giving up. At all times, Petraeus underscores his belief that the 30,000 extra American troops sent this year have reduced sectarian murders, encouraged more Iraqis to help U.S. forces and squeezed extremist groups.

"Once you get the locals recognizing that you are going to be there a while, they then tell you" where insurgent forces are hiding and where they have placed bombs, he said in a recent interview.

The news releases from Petraeus' command in the past few weeks have spoken boldly of "successes" and have focused attention on U.S. operations against fighters linked to al-Qaida in Iraq.

The military press operation floods e-mail inboxes with accounts of al-Qaida "emirs" and "most-wanted" insurgent leaders captured or killed, often on tips from Iraqi citizens.

There is considerable debate whether the military overstates the influence and presence of al-Qaida in Iraq. But the terror group was robust enough to try to impose a Taliban-style moral code on the Sunni-dominated Anbar province and in Diyala province north of Baghdad, according to Iraqi community leaders and U.S. military reports.

Crocker said he believes al-Qaida overplayed its hand, causing Sunni sheiks and homegrown insurgent leaders to rise up and to join the Americans' fight.

U.S. forces under Petraeus, who wrote the military's book on counterinsurgency warfare, used the serendipitous turnaround to full advantage and turned the one-time insurgents into a kind of auxiliary Iraqi security force. U.S. commanders have provided weapons, even while acknowledging the risks of arming former enemies.

Anbar province has calmed significantly, as have Diyala province and its capital, Baqouba, where U.S. forces have flushed out al-Qaida and Shiite militiamen who had fomented a virtual civil war there.

Members of a key Sunni guerrilla faction, the 1920 Revolution Brigade, also revolted in some Baghdad neighborhoods to chase out their erstwhile allies — led by the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida umbrella group.

Execution-style murders, believed to be the work of the Shiite Mahdi Army, are still occurring with grisly frequency, usually as many as 20 a day. But the numbers have gone down significantly in recent months.

Nevertheless, breakaway members of the militia are increasingly on the attack against U.S. and Iraqi forces, deploying armor-piercing bombs to deadly effect.

The No. 2 U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, says the Shiite militants aided by Iran carried out 73 percent of attacks that killed or wounded American troops in Baghdad in July. The sophisticated bombs — which fire a slug of superheated molten metal — accounted for a third of July U.S. combat deaths.

Members of the rogue militias have admitted to The Associated Press that they are getting the weapon from Iran. Iran denies it is supplying the Shiite cells.

In Washington, President Bush described Iran as "a destabilizing influence in the Middle East" and warned of unspecified "consequences" if Tehran does not halt the suspected flow of explosive devices into Iraq. Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is currently in Tehran seeking better security cooperation and other aid from top Iranian officials.

So the current report card reads: Al-Qaida is on the run somewhat, but the militant Shiite side of the equation is keeping the violence high. And that, the military and diplomats say, argues against a quick American withdrawal.

Neither Crocker nor Petraeus will talk dates. But neither has so far proposed an open-ended U.S. presence. Crocker speaks of looking not at the calendar but at conditions on the ground.

Their stewardship could be softening the drive by some lawmakers to set deadlines for troop withdrawals. A leading anti-war Democrat, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, has predicted that U.S. commanders will begin lowering troop levels early next year and that Congress could be more flexible in setting a deadline for a full pullout.

The largest unknown is Iraq's political paralysis. Both Washington and Iraqi political leaders show growing disgust with al-Maliki's seeming ineffectiveness and apparent bias in favor of fellow Shiites.

If political inaction and resentment explode into even more chaos — as looks increasingly likely — the hard military and diplomatic work still could be swept away by American voters who just want out of Iraq.

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Hurst is AP's bureau chief in Iraq and has covered the war since 2003.