IRAQ:Gen Petraeus says the troop surge has seen some modest progress but also a devastating rise in suicide bombs, writes Ann Scott Tysonin Baghdad
Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said the ongoing increase of almost 30,000 US troops in the country has achieved "modest progress" but has also met with setbacks such as a rise in devastating suicide bombings and other problems that leave uncertain whether his counterinsurgency strategy will ultimately succeed.
Assessing the first two months of the US and Iraqi plan to pacify the capital, senior American commanders - including Petraeus; Admiral William Fallon, head of US forces in the Middle East; Lieut Gen Raymond Odierno, commander of military operations in Iraq; and top regional commanders - see mixed results.
They said that while an increase in US and Iraqi troops has improved security in Baghdad and Anbar province, attacks have risen sharply elsewhere. Last week they said it was critical now for Iraqi leaders to forge the political compromises needed for long-term stability.
The commanders search for signs of success or failure. On Friday last, at dusk, Petraeus boarded a helicopter to look for scenes of normalcy and progress from above the maelstrom of the capital.
"On a bad day, I actually fly Baghdad just to reassure myself that life still goes on," he said.
The aircraft banked right and Petraeus caught sight of a patch of relative calm. "He's actually watering the grass!" Petraeus said with a laugh, peering down at a man tending a soccer field, with children playing nearby.
Seconds later the aircraft pivoted again, exposing boarded-up shops on a deserted, trash-strewn street. A bit farther, along the river Tigris, a hulking pile of twisted steel came into view - the remains of the Sarafiya bridge, blown up on April 12th amid a series of spectacular and deadly suicide bombings.
"That's a setback," Petraeus said, his voice lower. "That breaks your heart." And so it went, all across the city.
Directing the pilot to "break left" or "roll out", he scanned the landscape for even tiny improvements - a pile of picked-up rubbish, an Iraqi police car on patrol, a short line at one gas station - as if gathering mental ammunition for the next wave of Baghdad carnage. An amusement park, its rides lit up, merited a full circle.
"We have certainly pulled neighbourhoods back from the brink," Petraeus said, recalling his initial shock at the stark deterioration of parts of the capital upon his arrival in February.
The deployment of additional troops in Baghdad is only 60 per cent complete, and incoming units in many parts of the city are still conducting initial, labour-intensive operations to "clear" neighbourhoods before setting up patrol bases, a pillar of Petraeus's counterinsurgency plan.
Iraq's security forces have contributed the nine battalions pledged for the Baghdad operations, and rotate those forces every 90 days. The bases - which so far include 21 combat outposts and 26 joint security stations run together with Iraqi forces - are a key building block in the effort to increase security for Baghdad residents.
Another part of the strategy is to wall off communities along their traditional boundaries to control population access and prevent attacks.
"That's part of the concrete caterpillar," Petraeus said, pointing out a barrier going up in a neighbourhood in west Baghdad. "That market was shut completely down when I took command - now it has 200 shops," he said.
The walls helped divert the multiple car bombs in Baghdad on Wednesday that killed more than 170 people. Three exploded short of their targets, but the fourth and deadliest bomber was able to enter a market because someone had removed part of the barrier to gain easier access, US officials said.
US commanders say sectarian murders in Baghdad fell from 1,200 in January to fewer than 400 in March. Some markets are reopening, and a few thousand families have trickled back to areas they had fled. But the commanders agreed that among the most troubling trends in Iraq has been the proliferation of suicide bomb attacks, because they risk reigniting sectarian revenge killings and undermining the government. Suicide bombings have increased by 30 per cent over the six weeks that ended in early April, according to military data.
"When you have these big explosions, there is a very high risk of a major setback because it sends a message of instability and insecurity," said Admiral Fallon.
"I don't think you're ever going to get rid of all the car bombs," Petraeus said. "Iraq is going to have to learn - as did, say, Northern Ireland - to live with some degree of sensational attacks." A more realistic goal, he said, but one that has eluded US and Iraqi forces, is to prevent bombers from causing "horrific damage".
Another major concern shared by US military leaders is whether the government of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is capable of solidifying gains in security as well as making the crucial political compromises needed to achieve peace.
"Will the Iraqis generate the capacity in their security forces and in their government to sustain this over time? That's what keeps me up at night," Lieut Gen Odierno said.
Iraqi leaders "come from narrow political backgrounds . . . but now there is an expectation they will be able to make decisions well beyond the group they represent," Fallon said.
As the al-Maliki government moves slowly, and patience in the US wears thin, Petraeus and other commanders worry that their window for action is rapidly closing.
"We're trying to somehow speed up the Baghdad clock and put time on the Washington clock. That's all we can do at the end of the day," Petraeus said.
The increased presence of US and Iraqi soldiers and police in the neighbourhoods has helped the forces more easily track down death squads. A death squad leader in the Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City was detained recently, yielding a wealth of intelligence on the militia and its Iranian connections, according to a US military official.
US commanders said that at least so far, the bombings of Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad have not incited Shia militias to launch a new wave of revenge killings.
Shia militias, moreover, including the powerful Mahdi Army of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have not staged major resistance to US and Iraqi forces. Still, they acknowledge, al-Sadr's intentions remain unclear.
Flying over Baghdad as the lights of the city came on, Petraeus said Iraq society is "more fearful, more suspicious, more worried" and therefore more difficult to help than when he arrived on his first tour of duty, leading the 101st airborne division in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
"I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that this has an effect on all of us," he said.
"And so every now and then we just get on the helicopter . . . You go see some projects that you know have been built . . . You see some police stations and you see people just sort of driving on, people getting on with their lives, and it sort of reassures you. 'Hey, these people are survivors'."