Baghdad security plan hindered by unreliable Iraqi forces: US

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

BAGHDAD (AFP) - An interim assessment by US ground commanders of the three-month-old plan to secure Baghdad found Iraqi police have not been up to the task of securing cleared neighbourhoods, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

"There were some planning assumptions made that after an area was cleared and went into 'control' there would be sufficient Iraqi security forces to control the area," said Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl.

"We've had some issues in some areas with the availability of the police and in some cases there are some issues with reliability," he added.

Operation Fardh al-Qanun (Imposing Law), which was launched in February, focused on a "clear, hold and build" strategy for securing the city, whereby each neighbourhood would be systematically cleared of armed groups.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070605/wl_mideast_afp/iraqussecuritybaghdad_070605075414

[saigon68]

1. Kind of hard to "root out" the Viet Cong

I've seen this before

[IndianaGreen]

2. particularly when Charlie blends so well among the population

As in Vietnam when the Johnson Administration continued to wage a war that they knew was already lost, we now have Bush and a complicit Democratic Congress continuing to wage a war that they know is lost.

[Eugene]

3. O-I-L fails the same way Operation Together Forward did.

Who could have imagined that?

[grytpype]

4. Didn't everyone predict this?

I know I did.

The Iraqis will not play their assigned parts, either politically or militarily.

They never have since Day One of the invasion.

[libodem]

5. I have to believe that a lot of coercion going on

when Iraqi men join either the Police or the Army. They seem to be nearly one and the same. Can you imagine living under conditions where your Standing Army was used against civilians and the police helped. The Occupying force hates all Muslims and Arabs and takes glee in the fact that they kill each other so we don't have to. Anybody drop off any food boxes and bottled water lately? How in gods name can that even be done safely. We ought to be kicking in doors to deliver ice and propane, to see if anyone in the house can survive the curfews. I think when we drag off the fathers and sons during our house raids we are making them join up or rick being insurgency. Insurgency=any Iraqi civilian who isn't police or army. Then of course you can't leave them to babysit. After the neighborhoods are secured, we leave Iraqi Police to maintain the order. How long is that going to last? Is anyone surprised? The fox in charge of the henhouse? People this is so fucked-up.