More Troops to be Deployed to Baghdad, General Says

By Michael R. Gordon The New York Times Saturday 22 July 2006

Camp Fallujah, Iraq - The top US commander for the Middle East said Friday that the escalating sectarian violence in Baghdad had become a greater worry than the insurgency and that plans were being drawn up to move additional forces to the Iraqi capital.

"The situation with sectarian violence in Baghdad is very serious," said US Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of the US Central Command, speaking in an interview Friday. "The country can deal with the insurgency better than it can with the sectarian violence, and it needs to move decisively against the sectarian violence now."

The new Iraqi government announced last month that it was stepping up security efforts in Baghdad. The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who led al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, also prompted hopes that the tide of violence might subside.

But an intensifying cycle of sectarian attacks and revenge killings by Sunni and Shiite groups has engulfed the city. Many residents have been fleeing the capital. Two months after the new Iraq government took office, the security gains that "we had hoped for have not been achieved," Abizaid acknowledged.

Abizaid flew to Camp Fallujah to meet with Marine commanders who oversee the vast Anbar region in western Iraq. The Sunni-dominated province is one of the most violent areas in the country. Insurgents' attacks here seem to be as numerous as ever. But the prospect that sectarian strife could trigger a broader civil war that would overwhelm Iraq's capital has been a greater worry for top American commanders.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior US commander in Iraq, had been meeting with Iraq's defense minister, Abdel Kader Jassem al-Obeidi, to hammer out a plan to improve security. The plan included the deployment in the Baghdad area of additional troops, Iraqi as well as American.

"There is a very serious effort to make sure that it is not just weighted with additional US capability, but also additional Iraqi capability," Abizaid said. "Clearly, it will require that we move whatever combat power that the commanders on the ground there think is appropriate, whether Iraqi or American. And I think it will be a combination of both."

The shifting of additional forces to the Baghdad area is expected to come at the expense of troop levels in other parts of the country. It is not yet clear whether the increased violence will prompt US commanders to modify their longer-term plans for troop reductions.

Casey developed a plan that called for cutting the number of US combat brigades in Iraq to 12, from the current level of 14, by September. He also envisioned potentially shrinking the number of combat brigades to 10 this year. But that plan hinged on progress in the security situation.

Not all the steps to improve security are military. Abizaid said that political steps were also needed, including a plan for national reconciliation, the disarming of militias and reform of the police.

"Definitely one of the things that is not going well is the national police and police reform, and it needs to be carefully looked at," he said. "You can't allow sectarian politics to influence the ministries."