April 14
General Tommy Franks visits C.C.
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The man who led U.S. troops into Iraq was 4 star General Tommy Franks, who has since retired.
He was in Corpus Christi Wednesday to "speak freely" about the leadership and the ongoing effort in Iraq.
His appearance as part of Christus Spohn's annual Lyceum event comes at a critical point in Iraq.
87 U.S. troops have already been killed in April alone, making it the deadliest month since March of 2003.
Before retiring last August, Franks had leading soldiers into both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Before the Lyceum, he told reporters that he had predicted the fighting in Iraq would have by now been on the decline.
Franks says, "I was hopeful a month or two ago that we would put ourselves on sort of a trend to reduce the troop levels in Iraq and hand over to the Iraqi military and security forces responsibility for Iraq."
Instead, it's been more like the opposite.
The attacks on troops and civilians are coming nearly everyday all over the country, and troops are having to be kept longer than they were initially told.
Franks believes the intense media coverage of the ambushes over the past few months have only helped to inspire those responsible for the violence.
"The terrorists themselves, the bathists themselves, were able to watch this coverage and say 'Ah, we're succeeding,'" he says, "and so then rather than turning down the burner of violence in Iraq, what have we seen? They have turned it up."
Franks says he and the troops are committed finishing what they started, but the length of time needed and number of additional injuries or casualties to be suffered as a result remains unclear.
"At the end of the day, we know what it's gonna look like," he says, "Iraq is going to be a representative government for the people, the 25+ million who live there, but in the near term, I think one doesn't know. It's a good question. We just don't have a complete answer for you right now."
There is a supposed truce this week, but the attacks on U.S. troops continue nonetheless.
The tentative deadline for establishing an Iraqi government is still June 30, but many are growing doubtful that will happen as expected.