U.S. Commander: Many Iraq Insurgents Ready for Cease Fire

While more liberal voices in the mainstream media appear to be holding back this big story, perhaps to give Democrats time to figure out how to spin the news, The Associated Press reports the U.S. military is working aggressively to forge cease-fires with Iraqi militants and quell the violence around Baghdad, judging that 80 percent of enemy combatants are "reconcilable," a top U.S. commander said Thursday.

"We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces," [Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq] said from Camp Victory in Baghdad. "We believe a large majority of groups within Iraq are reconcilable and are now interested in engaging with us. But more importantly, they want to engage and become a part of the government of Iraq."

In considering this news, it would be naive to think, as Senate MajorityLeader Harry Reid does, that the U.S. has lost in Iraq. While commanders have repeatedly said they will not know until August at the earliest the true effects of the surge, it is reasonable to speculate that stepped-up coalition efforts are seriously impacting enemy combatants. Insurgents must have realized by now that Democrats have failed in their cut-and-run defunding of the war, and they have surely seen that the State Department has opened talks with Iran, a reported source of insurgent armaments. Sorry lefties, America is not begging for a cease fire. The pressure is on the insurgency to negotiate when faced with the inevitability of a an increased and sustained U.S. presence.

In any case, without further speculation on my part, I have included the primary source of the news, a video of the Pentagon briefing with Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, along with two relevant AFPS articles.


News Transcript: DoD Press Briefing with Lt. Gen. Odierno from the Pentagon

Reconciliation Needed for Peace in Iraq, Odierno Says
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2007 -- While all eyes are focused on the surge of U.S. troops into Baghdad, a top military commander stressed today that military force alone cannot solve the problems of the country.

"While security is important and creating stability for the Iraqi people remains paramount, success cannot be achieved without those diplomatic, political and economic endeavors that also make progress," said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq. "Therefore, it must be a combination of all of those for us to be successful."

Reconciliation is key to peace in the country. The general estimated that roughly 80 percent of the groups now working against the government can be brought into the political process.

"We believe a large majority of groups within Iraq are reconcilable and are now interested in engaging with us, but more importantly, they want to engage and become a part of the government of Iraq," he said during a Pentagon teleconference today.

The success the coalition and the Iraqi government have had in Iraq's Anbar province is encouraging to U.S. officials, Odierno said. Tribal leaders and sheikhs grew weary of al Qaeda violence and threw their lots in with the government and coalition.

"We now see opportunities for further engagement across Iraq with other tribes and entities, to include mainstream Sunni and Shiia insurgents," Odierno said.

Coalition commanders at all levels are working with local Iraqi leaders. "We are attempting to create confidence-building measures among these various groups, where they will ultimately reach out to the government of Iraq, who is working hard to establish a reconciliation strategy," he said.

Some groups will not listen to reason, and those extremists must be killed or captured, Odierno said. Al Qaeda in Iraq is one of those groups. "I believe ... very few of al Qaeda are reconcilable, but there might be a small portion," Odierno said.

The general said the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must continue to reach out to insurgent groups of all ethnic backgrounds, including illegal militias and Sunni insurgents.

"They have reached out to the tribes in al Anbar, and they are working with them in order to continue their movement towards the political process," he said. "That's what this reconciliation is about. It's about bringing these groups into the political process so we can deal with their differences in a peaceful way instead of in violent ways."

Odierno: More Time May Be Needed for Iraq Assessment
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2007 -- While military leaders will present an assessment of the progress of the new strategy in Iraq by a September deadline, a U.S. military commander in Iraq said it may be too soon to get a good feel for progress in the country.

Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, said in a Pentagon news conference that the nature of counterinsurgency warfare is such that more time may be needed to adequately assess the situation on the ground. The 2007 Emergency Supplemental signed by President Bush May 25 calls for the assessment in September.

While some of the forces that arrived in Baghdad as part of the surge have been in the country since February, other brigades will not arrive until the middle of next month.

"The full impact of the surge, in my mind, will not be able to be assessed until about August timeframe, and that's when they'll be in place 60 days," Odierno said via teleconference from Baghdad. "So that'll be the first time I'll be able to make a real initial assessment of the true effect of the surge."

He said he may decide he hasn't had enough time to gauge the effect and that will reflect in the report.

"The assessment might be I've seen enough and it's effective, or I've seen enough and it's not going to be effective," he said. "Right now if you asked me, I would tell you I'd probably need a little bit more time to do a true assessment."

Everything in Iraq is subject to quick changes, Odierno said. He said the situation is like a teeter-totter.

"You work your way up the teeter-totter, and when you go past the tipping point, it happens very quickly, and we've seen that out in Anbar," he said. "We're still going up that teeter-totter, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take us to get to that tipping point or if I believe or assess that we can't get to that tipping point. And that's why I got to just look at it."

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