Caldwell: Iraqi Government Will Control Its Ground Forces by Year's End

American Forces Press Service ^ | Gerry Gilmore

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 2007 – The Iraqi government will have command-and-control of all of its ground forces by the end of 2007, a senior U.S. military officer based in Baghdad predicted today.

The year 2007 “is truly the year of transition and adaptation” for Iraq, Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, told reporters at a news conference in Baghdad.

All Iraqi army divisions will be under Iraqi Ground Forces Command by summertime, Caldwell said. And, all Iraqi provinces, he said, will go back to Iraqi provincial control by the fall.

“So that by the end of the year 2007, a significant year of transition, the multinational force and the U.S. mission here in Iraq will be truly in support of the efforts of the government of Iraq and not commanding and controlling those things, but working as a support mechanism,” Caldwell said.

Meanwhile, President George Bush and his advisors are putting the finishing touches on a new U.S. strategy for Iraq. The president is expected to announce the new plan sometime before his State of the Union address, slated for Jan. 23.

The Feb. 22 terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque religious shrine in Samarra triggered a surge of Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence across Iraq in 2006, a development that has led to the formulation of a new U.S. strategy for Iraq, Caldwell said.

Caldwell pointed out that, despite the violence, the Iraqis have made considerable advances in the past year.

“Iraqis achieved many accomplishments in 2006 that serve as the foundation for future progress,” Caldwell pointed out. Over the course of the past year Iraq seated its first democratically-elected permanent government, he said, and the nation also produced a national unity government that represents Iraqis of all religious sects and tribes.

“Iraqis have stepped up and begun taking responsibility for their own security,” Caldwell said, noting that responsibility for security in Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Najaf provinces has been transferred to Iraqi provincial control.

“The Iraqi army and police now have overall responsibility for all law enforcement and security activities in those provinces (and) answer to their respective provincial governors and councils,” he said.

Just one of Iraq’s 10 army divisions was responsible for operations within its own territory at the beginning of last year. Today, 80 percent of Iraq’s army divisions are responsible for their own battle space, he said.

Yet, Iraq continues to be plagued by high levels of unacceptable violence, Caldwell said, noting the mayhem has cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

And, more than 800 U.S. servicemen and women gave their lives in service in Iraq over the past year, he said.

“The loss of every single one of these brave Americans is a terrible tragedy for a family somewhere,” Caldwell said. “Even as we continue to work to secure Iraq and build a better future for the people of this region, we extend our deepest condolences for their loss and for our eternal gratitude to these families for the sacrifice of their loved ones.”
The Iraqis and their coalition partners face significant challenges in 2007, Caldwell said. The Iraqis must increase the capabilities and efficiency in their army and police units, he said, while their government must continue to work to reconcile and unify different segments of the population.

Multinational Force Iraq is committed to assisting the Iraqi government by conducting operations and developing Iraqi security forces to provide the stability needed so that Iraq’s new political processes can mature, Caldwell said.

“Coalition forces remain dedicated to this mission, and we have not given up on the Iraqis,” Caldwell said. “We cannot write off a country where people have not given up on themselves.”

The United States has been fighting terrorism and extremism since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, where 241 servicemembers, mostly Marines, died, Caldwell said. Iraq is another battleground, he said, that is pitting the forces of freedom against those of terrorism and extremism.

“In partnership with the Iraqi people, we are fighting to demonstrate that there is an alternative besides tyranny and extremism for the people of this region,” Caldwell said.

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

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All the News the MSM refuses to use!

[SolidWood]

Thanks SandRat. Your contribution of informations is invaluable.

[Marine_Uncle]

Looks like we are not that far out from the original projections that all this would take place during 2006. And those projections as some of us remember where being discussed in 2004. So many things continue to seem to be ignored about the over all plan for Iraq. I wish I had not lost much of the stuff I had been storing on my system. I would go to the trouble of culminating a number of CENTCOM, DoD, and other early news press releases etc., into one big post, to show I am not making anything up. But I sense enough of us at FR, do have good enough memories to realize we never planned to stay in Iraq as a SASO force well beyond 2007. We all realize how al Qaeda and Baathist elements where able to form into a force to be reckoned with, but as many have indicated, war is not a static action. And pre-intellegience was not clear on how serious or able Saddamist may have been at creating an effecient post war insurgency.
What was hoped, was that the reconstruction would had taken off with no impediments, and at this point they would have a fully functional government, and a military that we could continue to work with keeping only forces in country that would have worked with them to attain future admittance into NATO.
Obviously the Shia have put a real monkey wrench into the cog wheels. They only have their selves to blame for much of the current sectarian violence. I cannot blam the Pentagon for their ills.
Let us continue to remember, Maliki booh hooed about our forces creating traffic jams and ordered US troops to take down check points in a lot of the now violent Baghdad neighborhoods.
Our ground commanders must be guzzling down cases of Pepto Bismal a day.
For those that believe Bremmer may have relished in a Shia dominant government as has evolved, I think you are mistaken. The deal was most likely to accept their majority and sweet talk, as how they would treat all Iraqi fairly excluding the Baathist.
And Bremmer probably got sucked into the deal, not realizing there may have been other alternatives to insist on, such as how their voting process was set up. Which is obvioulsy a blue print for disaster.
But he and who followed had only so many cards on the table.
After all the game plan all along was to set the stage for federal elections that could produce a unified secular ran government which would then get the country back on it's feet.
I hold the Iraqi directly responsible for all the crap that has been allowed to develope. This crap about GWB having failed this or that is a bunch of rubbish.
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot force it to drink.