US commander: Violence down in Iraq but not by enough
The No 2 US commander in Iraq today said a 7-month-old security operation has reduced violence by 50% in Baghdad but he acknowledged that civilians were still dying at too high a rate.
Lt Gen Raymond Odierno told reporters that car bombs and suicide attacks in Baghdad have fallen to their lowest level in a year, and civilian casualties have dropped from a high of about 32 to 12 per day.
He also said violence in Baghdad had seen a 50% decrease, although he did not provide details about how the numbers were obtained and said that was short of the military’s objectives.
“What we do know is that there has been a decline in civilian casualties, but I would say again that it’s not at the level we want it to be,” Odierno said. “There are still way too many civilian casualties inside of Baghdad and Iraq.”
Al-Qaida in Iraq was “increasingly being pushed out of Baghdad, ”seeking refuge outside“ the capital and ”even fleeing Iraq,“ Odierno said.
Iraqi military commander Lt Gen. Abboud Qanbar said that before the surge, one-third of Baghdad’s 507 districts were under insurgent control.
“Now, only five to six districts can be called hot areas,” he said. “Al-Qaida now is left only with booby-trapped cars and roadside bombs as their only weapons, which cannot be called quality operations, and they do not worry us.”
The Iraqi commander also reported the release of 1,686 detainees from Iraqi jails.
The comments came as relations between the US and Iraqi governments remained strained in the wake of Sunday’s shooting involving Blackwater USA security guards, which Iraqi officials said left at least 11 people dead.
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki suggested the US Embassy find another company to protect its diplomats.
The North Carolina-based company has said its employees acted “lawfully and appropriately” in response to an armed attack against a State Department convoy.
But a survivor who said he was three cars away from the convoy denied the American guards were under fire, claiming they apparently started shooting to disperse more than two dozen cars that were stuck in a traffic jam.
Blackwater is the main provider of bodyguards and armed escorts for American government civilian employees in Iraq and banning it from Iraq would hamper and make movement of US diplomats and others difficult.
Maliki, who disputed Blackwater’s version of what happened, spoke out sharply against the company yesterday, saying the government would not tolerate the killing of its citizens “in cold blood.”
He also said the shootings had generated such “widespread anger and hatred” that it would be “in everyone’s interest if the embassy used another company while the company is suspended.”
Eager to contain the crisis, the State Department said Wednesday a joint US-Iraqi commission will be formed.
The size and composition of the commission have yet to be determined but its members are charged with assessing the results of both US and Iraqi investigations of Sunday’s incident, reaching a common conclusion about what happened and recommending possible changes to the way in which the embassy and its contractors handle security, the State Department said.
Baghdad faced more violence today.
A car bomb at an Iraqi troop checkpoint at the entrance of Sadr City, the capital’s largest Shiite neighbourhood, killed two Iraqi soldiers and a civilian, and wounded seven others.
A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi police patrol near the al-Shaab Stadium in eastern Baghdad, killing one officer and wounding four others and a civilian.
Meanwhile, the US military said a pre-dawn raid by Iraqi special forces and US troops that included helicopter gunships in Sadr City led to the detention of seven Shite extremists. Local residents claimed a civilian and a five-year old boy were killed in the raid.
US military also reported killing three insurgents during an operation in Baghdad’s Baya’a area and seven others in operations targeting al Qaida in central Iraq.
