Once Baghdad is declared relatively secure, commanders have a tentative long-term plan to shift more forces to al Anbar province to help Marines and soldiers there uproot al-Qaida from its main base of operation in Iraq, according to a key military planner.
The shift likely would not happen until next year, according to a defense source who was briefed on the plan, and would be needed to finally end the terrorist group’s three-year grip on Anbar.
The source, who asked to remain anonymous, said commanders are counting on making significant gains in the capital by early 2008, when all five U.S. brigades in the U.S. reinforcement plan will have been in place. The last brigade is slated to arrive in May. Two are in place in Baghdad.
Heritage Foundation military analyst James Jay Carafano, a West Point graduate, said more troops will be needed in Anbar, a vast rugged province west of Baghdad.
“We’re already seeing people going where the killing is easy,” he said of some insurgents leaving Baghdad. “Eventually you’re going to have to follow these guys, and Anbar province is a big pipeline for al-Qaida.”
The U.S. command has reported a sharp drop in attacks in Baghdad, as a coalition of U.S. Army soldiers and Iraqi Security Forces set up Joint Security Stations, and smaller combat posts, in mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods plagued by sectarian violence. Barricades and checkpoints have gone up around busy public places, such as markets and squares, to block vehicle-borne suicide bombers.
But insurgents have shown that they can adapt. Truck bombings thought to be carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq now occur with more frequency outside the capital.
Meanwhile, much of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, a Shiite force, has backed off in what could become a waiting game. Sadr and his family are in Iran.
“The bad guys go to ground, and if you don’t want them to come back later you have to go to the rabbit holes,” Carafano said.
The United States has designated Anbar, a primarily Sunni province dotted by villages along the Euphrates River, as the co-equal focus of the reinforcement, along with Baghdad.
The Marine-led force in Anbar numbers about 30,000. Part of the reinforcement plan President Bush announced on Jan. 10 calls for an extra 4,000 Marines to deploy to the province.
Carafano said Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his commanders should refrain from even mild optimistic statements on a troop surge that is not yet two months old.
“I think it is very, very unhelpful because the first bit of bad news and you’ve got, ‘Oh, you lied to us’,” he said.
