U.S. Fails To Curb Baghdad Violence

(CBS/AP)  The 2-month old joint U.S.-Iraqi bid to crush violence in the Iraqi capital "has not met our overall expectations," as attacks in Baghdad rose by 22 percent in the first three weeks of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the U.S. military spokesman said on Thursday.

Despite that 22 percent, General William Caldwell insisted violence and progress exist side by side, rattling off statistics such as more that 700 weapons caches discovered since July.

But the fact that the insurgency can take loses like that and still step up its attacks against American troops in what it believed to be an attempt to influence the November elections in the United States is also a measure of its strength and resilience, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

"The enemy knows that killing innocent people and Americans will garner headlines and create a sense of frustration," Caldwell said.

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Listen to CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick's report on the military's assessment.

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The spike in violence during the month of fasting was "disheartening" and the Americans were now working with Iraqi authorities to "refocus" security measures, Caldwell said.

"In Baghdad, Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations in sustaining a reduction in the level of violence," Caldwell said at a weekly news briefing.

Meanwhile, the White House is emphatically rejecting two proposals aimed at ending the war in Iraq. Press Secretary Tony Snow says the idea of dividing Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is a "non-starter." He also says a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops — perhaps by five percent every two months — is not under consideration. "You withdraw when you win," Snow said.

Snow was commenting on ideas reportedly being looked at by a blue-ribbon panel chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker. The commission is to report its findings after the elections. But Baker has said there are alternatives other than "stay the course and cut and run."

In other developments:

Military doctors say it's become common practice to recycle soldiers with mental disorders back into combat, reports CBS News correspondent Sharon Alfonsi. One study estimates that about 16 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq have PTSD. But military officials say they don't keep tabs on how many troops still fighting have been diagnosed.

Iraq's prime minister says Saddam Hussein's execution would help undermine the insurgency, as the ex-president's genocide trial heard more testimony Thursday of poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages two decades ago. "Definitely, with his execution, those betting on returning to power under the banner of Saddam and the Baath (Party) will lose," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters Wednesday in Najaf.

Two more U.S. soldiers were killed in combat, one in restive Anbar province and a second near Balad, the U.S. military reported Thursday. The deaths raised the American toll for October to 72, putting the month on course to be the bloodiest month for U.S. forces in nearly two years.

With U.S. troop levels stuck at 140,000 and no end in sight to the war, the Marines have decided they will have to activate 600-man reserve combat battalions and send them back for a second tour in Iraq, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. It will be the first time a reserve combat unit has had to go back a second time and it's one more sign of the stress the military is under.

The family of the murdered chief of police intelligence in the southern Maysan province struck back Thursday against his suspected killers, kidnapping the teenage brother of a local militia commander and vowing not to free him unless the culprits turned over, police said. The showdown between the two Shiite militias has the potential to develop into an all-out conflict between the heavily armed groups.

The gloomy assessment of the Baghdad operation, which was set in motion with the deployment of an extra 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops on Aug. 7, was issued at a time of perceived tension between the U.S. military and administration and the nearly five-month-old government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Caldwell said, for example, that U.S. forces had been forced to release a captured top organizer for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday, a day after he was detained on suspicion of "illegal" activities.

He said Mazin al-Sa'edi, a top organizer with the Sadr Movement political party in western Baghdad, was set free on the demand of al-Maliki. Al-Sa'edi had been detained along with five of his aides for suspected involvement in Shiite militant violence.

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[mjv2944]

Bush is not an evil man, just dumb, and hardheaded. It appears he doesn't listen to sound advise and believe me Henry Kissinger is NOT full of good advise. He started a war on a lie and continues to wage it. He and his cronies are the only WMD's in Iraq.

[drgoodwin12]

Read this article before you post it is not biased and is written by a conservative in a conservative newspaper.It does not bode well for the STAY THE COURSE strategy and it is not an oped.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901907.html
The article is free to read you just have to create an account,no money involved.So please read.

Just as the justification for an invasion was based on lies, so has the aftermath of the invasion.

Bush would like you to believe that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda are responsible for attacks against American Troops - the reality is that religious militias - Shia and Sunni - are behind the majority of the attacks.

Bush was warned before he went to war that after Saddam was removed from power, there would be power struggles between the various religious/ethnic groups.

He chose to ignore them and the result is that Americans are dying because of his policies.

The responsibility for the invasion of Iraq and the aftermath lays firmly on his shoulders.

He wanted war at any cost and he got it.

The man who couldn't be bothered turning up for his own military responsibilities is now happy to send American sons and daughters to die in a war that he, a known coward, started.

Meanwhile, Bush is safe at home while they are dying and his friends and campaign contributors are becoming richer of the bodies of American troops.

In a war that Bush wanted - he had and has no answers.

All he has is blood on his hands.

bmallen3 wrote:

"This set of comments is so full of nonsense it is pure fiction. Nobody lied, Bush is not evil, The US is not evil, terrorist want to kill you whether you negotiate with them or not, none of the writers have a clue about the Middle East nor any solutions to the terrorist problem..."

And clearly, you have no clue either.

And apparently, even the truth doesn't seem to ring any bells with you.

Back to the old head in the sand routine for you.

[cofmanaaron]

What to do about Iraq? Maybe good intelligence and targeted bombings of terrorists would work better than ground occupation. Wouldn't it stop any developing military threat that might appear after we would withdraw troops? I don't mean, of coarse, Isreali-style bombings, but it seems to me that we might have gotten Osama if we'd just sent a few jets to the training camps before 9/11 when Tenet briefed Ms. Rice about the threat. Hmmmm, WMD factories can be blown up.

[cofmanaaron]

Oh, and the fact that Halliburton and defense contractors that the Bush family partly owns profits hugely from this situation didn't hurt when there could have been any doubt in Bush's mind about the intelligence he 'decided' upon. Hey, there's an explanation for Katrina too, Bush likely undermined FEMA or outright told them to back off so Halliburton could make big bucks cleaning the mess up. Republicans have always preferred the market to government programs. Any question? After all, why else is Halliburton ripping us off by all accounts while the government lets them off the hook?

[cofmanaaron]

Bush isn't evil, true, but I seriously think that he let his personal emotions get the best of his judgement concerning Iraq. Past and present. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he disagreed with George senior about stopping at Basra while Bush Jr. was thinking about what to do after 9/11. It was the right war, but the wrong target. He let Iraq and the 'failure' of his father in bringing the Mideast in line through Iraq get to him, and now he can't admit to himself that he's lost and he screwed up the chance to fight the war on terror successfully. Joe Klein paraphrases Woodward in Time: "if he dumps Rumsfeld, isn't George W. Bush tacitly admitting that his dad was right about a lot of other things too, like choosing not to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 1991?" And just today we learn our reservists are going back for a second round and the way it looks a draft is not far off. God help us, and may some of us open our eyes and grow some brains and some *****. Throw the idiots out!

[frankly6]

Has it occured to you that we were not attacked by Iraq? That no terrorists were there before we attacked Iraq? Do you know that all of our intelligence agencies now agree that our presence there is only helping extremists recruit more extremists and made us all less safe. They wrote a very detailed report about it and someone had to leak it because Bush didn't like how it reflected on his "stay the course" strateginimummmm... Doesn't it make you want to scratch that thick head of yours that the man who is really responsible for 9/11 is not only still at large but Bush could care less? Here's what Bush says about Binladin: "I don't know where he is and you know I don't really think about him much".

You say the people in this forum don't have a clue about terrorism or the Middle East. Well we would all love to hear what you know about how and why we ended up in this mess and how we get out. Maybe you can tell us who the terrorists are, where they're from, and what they want. It would be extremely enlightening I'm sure. If you can write a paragraph with some original thought rather than talking points or some tired, empty, rediculous slogans you heard on fox news I will be extremely impressed.

[radiob-2009]

To nynative1340 I see you have read and are well informed.It is to bad that to many people who post here have not read anything.They simply blindly listen to the mantra.Good Post

[radiob-2009]

To ozilot the majority of killings taking place in Iraq now are from the militias.Just trying to keep you correct on who is considered the greater threat.Read the Washington Post article.It is far more detailed than this one and it does not praise anybody.It is actually one of the most informantive articles written without bias.It is not Fox News.