Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus report on progress in Iraq:
He said the troop buildup has clearly established “tactical momentum,” meaning its more aggressive efforts to secure volatile neighborhoods in Baghdad and areas around the capital are succeeding. The bigger issue is whether those gains will lead to a stability that can be sustained over time. “The surge enables us to turn the tide just a bit in key places,” the four-star general said in an hour-long interview. Asked what more the U.S. military needs to accomplish to put Iraq on a steadier track, Petraeus ticked of a list that included furthering the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, which are intended to gradually take over for U.S. forces, beginning in areas where security and political conditions allow. “We want to make much more progress against al-Qaida. We would like to build on the early momentum from local groups rejecting al-Qaida and militias,” Petraeus said. We want to certainly not just sit on the violence in Baghdad neighborhoods and stabilize it but to create a way ahead that can be sustained by the Iraqis over time. We want to, where possible, frankly, to continue the process of handing off to Iraqis.” Crocker spoke more directly of his conviction that the current strategy should be maintained – and about his concern that if the United States were to withdraw now Iraq would be plunged into a humanitarian disaster.
Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi dismissed the possibility that she would hear news from Iraq that changes her mind about withdrawal:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said “the Democratic Congress will go on record–every day if necessary–to register a judgment in opposition to the course of action that the President is taking in Iraq” and to “fight for a redeployment of our forces as the central element of a new-direction strategy for Iraq.”
