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Generals: Iraqi security capability has shrunk

Posted on: Thursday, 29 September 2005, 16:40 CDT

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Iraqi security battalions able to fight without help from American forces has shrunk, senior U.S. generals said on Thursday, arguing that this was not a backward step.

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. George Casey, top U.S. commander in Iraq, also said bringing home a substantial number of troops from Iraq next year will depend on political events there in the next 2-1/2 months. The United States currently has 149,000 troops in Iraq.

The Pentagon has said training Iraqi security forces -- who number about 192,000 -- so they are able to defend their own country is a prerequisite to an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces.

But just one of the 120 U.S.-trained Iraqi army and police battalions was able to operate without U.S. forces, Casey and Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told senators.

The Pentagon said in July the number was three.

Calling this discouraging, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said, "That contributes to a loss of public confidence in how the war is going and whether this strategy is the appropriate one and it's being executed properly, (and) whether or not we're making progress."

Casey said it would be wrong to view this as "taking a step backwards," but added, "We fully recognize that Iraqi armed forces will not have an independent capability for some time because they don't have the institutional base to support them."

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain pointedly told Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the war had not gone as well as the Pentagon said it would go.

"I don't think this committee or the American public has ever heard me say that things are going very well in Iraq," said Myers, speaking a day before he retires from his post. "This is a hard struggle."

U.S. public support for the 2 1/2-year war has dropped in opinion polls, along with support for President George W. Bush. Some U.S. lawmakers are questioning how long troops will stay, and Thursday's hearing took place less than a week after an anti-war protest in Washington last weekend drew at least 100,000 people.

TROOP CUTS

Casey predicted in March and July "fairly substantial" reductions in U.S. troops next spring and summer, which Pentagon officials said meant perhaps 20,000 to 30,000. In remarks to reporters on Wednesday, Casey cast doubt on this, saying Iraq was in a period of heightened uncertainty that made it "too soon to tell" if troops can be brought home.

Casey told senators on Thursday that the possibility for such cuts in troops in 2006 still exists.

Since the March 2003 invasion there have been 1,924 U.S. military deaths, with another 14,755 wounded in action, the Pentagon said. The U.S. troop deaths have been dwarfed by Iraqi casualties.

Casey said the next 75 days would be critical in deciding on troop cuts. Iraqis vote on a draft constitution in an October 15 referendum and, if they endorse it, elect a new government on December 15.

Testifying later before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Casey declined to give a timetable for handing security responsibilities from U.S. and other foreign forces to Iraqis.

Casey said the average 20th century counterinsurgency lasted nine years. "And there is no reason that we should believe that the insurgency in Iraq will take any less time to deal with," Casey said, although he did not say U.S. forces would be there the entire time.

The Bush administration, which presents the war in Iraq as part of its war on terrorism, has said that withdrawing troops now would embolden enemies of the United States. Myers said on Thursday that if the United States pulls out now from Iraq, another attack like the one on September 11, 2001, was "right around the corner."

Source: REUTERS

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