Anbar Province Follow-Up

Previously I posted about Col. Devlin's report regarding the situation in Anbar (Al-Anbar) Province, and CENTCOM's response.   Today Military.com is carrying news about Maj. Gen Zilmer's press conference addressing this issue.

WASHINGTON - A senior American commander in Iraq said Tuesday that U.S.-led military operations are "stifling" the insurgency in western Anbar province but are not strong enough to defeat it.

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer told reporters in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Fallujah that he has enough U.S. troops - about 30,000 - to accomplish what he called his main mission: training Iraqi security forces.

"For what we are trying to achieve out here I think our force levels are about right," he said. Even so, he said the training of Iraqi soldiers and police had not progressed as quickly as once expected.

"Now, if that mission statement changes - if there is seen a larger role for coalition forces out here to win that insurgency fight - then that is going to change the metrics of what we need out here," he added

Gen Zilmer adds, that there are significant issues that need to be solved in order for the insurgency to be defeated .  I think I would request more troops sooner rather than later but that's not my call. 

White House press secretary Tony Snow said President Bush would be talking to Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, later this week.

"If the president gets a recommendation from the combatant commanders to send more troops to al-Anbar province, they will get them," Snow said.

These paragraph's do cause me some concern:

Pentagon officials hastily arranged the interview with Zilmer in response to a series of news reports about a classified report by the chief of intelligence for the Marines in western Anbar province, Col. Pete Devlin. Zilmer said he agreed with the assessment by Devlin, who works for Zilmer, and he did not dispute news reports that characterized it as depicting Anbar as locked in a military stalemate with inadequate political progress.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Devlin report concluded that Anbar's political and security situation will continue to deteriorate unless it gets a major infusion of aid and substantially more U.S. troops.

Zilmer would not discuss specifics of the Devlin report, but said he did not want more U.S. troops as long as his mission did not include defeating the insurgency.

That seems contradictory to me, "I agree with the report recommending more US troops, but I don't want more US troops because defeating the insurgency so we can withdraw US troops isn't my mission".  This is what I said yesterday:

If the request is not made it is either a repudiation of this story or an indication that the senior commanders are not willing to do what is needed. I think they will do what's needed.

The report clearly isn't being repudiated so now we have to see if the senior commanders will step up.

 

 

tags: Iraq, War, Global+War+on+Terror, Anbar, Al+Qaeda+in+Iraq