Defense Department Special Briefing on Security Operations in Baghdad

Definse Link ^ | 15 July 2005 | Major General Joseph Taluto

[Racehorse]

A large measure of our success is the transfer of responsibility to Iraqi security forces. In recent months I have seen the contribution of our Iraqi army partners rise dramatically. Iraqi units now conduct over half of the counterinsurgency fight. They do this either independently or jointly with our soldiers.

[. . .]

The majority of the insurgency in North-Central Iraq remains those Iraqis with ties to the former regime, or Sunni Arabs who reject their new sovereign government. . . . we are seeing more of these Iraqis turning away from violence and participating in the political process.

[. . .]

A smaller element of the insurgency in North-Central Iraq is religious extremists and foreign terrorists.

[. . .]

. . . businesses are operating. Schools are open; children are receiving an education. And Iraqi security forces are providing internal security and are respected more every day.

[. . .]

Q Brian Hartman with ABC News . . . How can things be staying the same when half the insurgency has sort of dropped off and the other half has stayed the same?

GEN. TALUTO: I don't think I said that I thought the religious extremists had grown, I thought they had coalesced, meaning that there was more cooperation or passing of information between a variety of groups

. . . we're seeing more suicide vehicle- borne IEDs of late. So there's some trade-off there. Of course the suicide vehicle-borne IEDs are mostly against innocent civilians, against soft targets . . . I don't think it has grown. I don't know that I could say that it has been reduced significantly, because we still see these level of suicide attacks, but it doesn't mean it's done by a lot of people. It's hard to quantify.

[Racehorse]

The operations briefing is also available via C-SPAN.

[TADSLOS]

. . . businesses are operating. Schools are open; children are receiving an education. And Iraqi security forces are providing internal security and are respected more every day.

Damned quagmire!