-- First comments on missing US soldiers
-- Cites "stunning progress" in Anbar
“I think generally is is still early days. We are literally still just setting the footprint if you will to do what we intend to achieve but until we get all those forces in and have really worked with them for a while I think it’s difficult to see what’s going to happen,” he told me in an interview Tuesday evening.
Petraeus said there was wide recognition that patience in Washington was wearing thin and while the coalition could produce some improvements in security, stability would depend on serious political reconciliation between Iraq’s Shiite-led government and the Sunni minority.
“Clearly they have to show that they are willing to reconcile and that they can make some progress in some legislative areas to give hope to some of the people there that perhaps could put some time on the Washington clock...Come September, I don’t think we’ll have anything definitive in September (although) certainly we’ll have some indicators on the political side in Iraq.”
Petraeus, on his third tour of duty in Iraq, said he’d been shocked when he arrived back in Baghdad at some of the devestation caused by sectarian fighting unleashed by the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year.
“I think it has been fair to say that there have been an area of some successes and some areas in which we have not made progress such as reducing the number of sensational attacks in particular,” Petraeus said.
He said he expects an additional Army brigade, a Marine expeditionary unit and more military intelligence to be on the ground in Iraq in mid-June.
He believes though there is "incremental progress being made on the ground in Baghdad,” as evidenced by the lack of car bombs in major markets that have seen large attacks in the past, and a dramatic improvement in security in Haifa Street, previously a haven for al-Qaeda.
He said he and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are in the the process of refining the campaign plan for Iraq, including some recommendations from a strategic assessment team which brought together security and diplomatic advisors to review current strategy.
“There will be some changes in the new campaign plan and others that just make sense but it’s not a dramatic change,” he said.
Petraeus said in addition to what he termed “stunning progress” in Anbar where some of the fiercest fighting in Iraq has been quelled by tribes turning against al-Qaeda and allying themselves with Iraqi forces, the coalition has had some tough weeks.
Coalition forces continue to search for three missing American servicemen after an attack near dense palm groves south of Baghdad. An al-Qaeda linked group claims it is holding them.
“We have a massive search under way with every imaginable set of assets...we’ve had intelligence that has seemed promising but obviously we haven’t found them so the search continues very intensively,” he said.
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