WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2008
U.S. To Speed Up Troop Removals In Iraq
Forces To Be Reduced By A Brigade This Month; Series Of Bomb Attacks Kill 9 Iraqis
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Play CBS Video Video End In Iraq May Be Near One day after Barack Obama's election win, the Pentagon announced it will reduce the number of combat brigades in Iraq to 14, the lowest total since 2006. David Martin reports.
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Video Iraq Troops React To Election "CBS News RAW:" Troops based just south of Baghdad react to the election of Sen. Barack Obama, saying they will support him as president.
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A U.S soldier of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and Iraqi police officers patrol in Fadhiliah, eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Oct. 22, 2008. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
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Photo Essay Week In Iraq Photos A daily diary with scenes of the latest attacks and snapshots from the effort to rebuild a nation.
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Interactive Iraq: 5 Years At War Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, the war wears on.
Military officials say two brigades from the 101st Airborne Division will leave Iraq this month and only one will be replaced. A brigade is roughly 3,500 soldiers. Initially the 3rd Brigade, 101st Division, was scheduled to leave this month, and the 2nd Brigade, 101st Division, was to leave by February.
On Wednesday, however, the military announced the 2nd Brigade will instead return to its Fort Campbell, Ky., home base this month, after serving for 13 months, rather than the expected 15.
The unit served in northwest Baghdad, where violence has plunged, including a 50 percent decline in overall attacks in the area and a more than 90 percent drop in murders.
That will still leave more than 145,000 troops in Iraq, so it's only a down payment on meeting President-elect Barack Obama's goal of getting all combat brigades out of the country by the end of 2010, reports CBS News security correspondent David Martin.
The U.S. has to get down to just eight brigades in Iraq if it wants to build up its forces in Afghanistan, which Obama has said he will do, and at the same time give troops more time at home, reports Martin.
U.S. forces have also seen a dramatic decline in troop fatalities, with deaths falling to their second lowest monthly level in October. There were 14 U.S. troops killed last month, including seven lost in combat. That total was one more than the 13 deaths in July - the lowest monthly level of the war.
President Bush announced in September that the military would go from 15 to 14 combat brigade in Iraq some time in January - following recommendations from Gen. David Petraeus, then his top Iraq commander.
The decision sparked sharp criticism from Congress members who wanted Petraeus to recommend a swifter and larger drawdown in Iraq. And the plan appeared to push decisions for any more aggressive troop cutbacks to the next administration.
They complained that it made it more difficult to divert additional forces to Afghanistan, where commanders have repeatedly asked for thousands more troops.
At the time, however, Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged a cautious approach in Iraq, saying commanders did not yet believe the security gains were "enduring," and that there was the potential for reversals in the future.
More recently, however, Gates and other officials have talked more insistently about the need to boost troop levels in Afghanistan, noting that the increase cannot take place until more forces come home from Iraq.
Despite the overall drop in violence, nine Iraqis died in three separate bomb attacks that also injured two American soldiers.
Iraqi police reported a suicide bomber rammed his car into a police patrol on the road to Baghdad's airport Wednesday, killing six people and wounding 12 others.
Police said three officers were among those killed in the attack, while four policemen were wounded.
The heavily secured highway leading from central Baghdad to the capital's airport was once among the most dangerous stretches in Iraq. Insurgents staged almost daily attacks with roadside bombs and machine guns on U.S military convoys and civilian vehicles traveling to and from downtown Baghdad.
But security has improved markedly on the highway in the past 18 months since authorities blocked off side streets feeding onto the road put up blast walls along the highway.
Also Wednesday, two U.S. soldiers were wounded in a roadside bomb attack near the town of Karmah west of Baghdad as they responded to reports of a bomb in the area, the U.S. military said. Two Iraqis were killed, while an Iraqi interpreter, two Iraqi Army soldiers and 11 civilians were wounded in the bombing.
An Iraqi security official said the U.S. troops were injured as they rushed to the site of an earlier roadside bomb attack that killed a prominent leader of the local Awakening Council, the term for mostly Sunni groups that have joined forces with the Americans against al Qaeda in Iraq.
Elsewhere, one policeman died and three more were wounded when their patrol hit a roadside bomb in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said.
Wednesday's violence follows a series of bombings in Baghdad this week that have killed more than 30 people, and underscores that insurgents still pose a threat.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said an American soldier died of non-combat related causes.
It was the first death reported since Oct. 29 among the 151,000-strong American military force in Iraq, and brought to at least 4,191 the number of U.S. military members who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
U.S. officials say attacks in the Iraqi capital are averaging about four a day - down nearly 90 percent from levels of late 2006, when Shiite-Sunni fighting was at its high point and just before the U.S. troop surge that helped bring down violence in the capital. But U.S. commanders warn the security gains are reversible.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 40 CommentsIran will be attacked at the end of the month by Isreal and with our approval and support.
Much of the credit belongs to President Bush for making the tough decision to stand by the surge plan.
Now, all that remains is for Obama and the Democrats NOT to fumble the ball on the troop drawdown by taking them out before conditions warrent it. Keeping troops in Iraq is bound to upset the Liberals, so we''''ll see what Obama''''s spine is made of, and how much grey matter he really has upstairs...Posted by CBSisPravda"
Sure, give Bush the credit for the surge. But also give him the blame for manipulating and lying about the facts to start the war, the death of 4000 servicemen, the loss of $1 trill of taxpayers money, the rise in oil prices, the destruction of our economy and so much more...but lastly let me say that you can also give Bush credit for the destruction of the GOP. Enjoy your celebration for the success of the surge in Iraq. As you celebrate most Americans will see the war as a tragedy, and as a war that will have no victory even in the best of circumstances.
You really need to look at the timeline of events to get the correct pespective instead listening to political rhetoric.
Posted by mitch6544 at 01:28 PM : Nov 06, 2008
uhhh....OK. How about: It''''s kind of funny how Iraq was rarely brought up by Obama during the election. Could it be because paying the "Sons of Iraq" worked and we are pretty much done in Iraq?
How''s that?
A lesson to us all, to thine own self be true, otherwise you''''ll get sc.rewed
Posted by ozilott at 12:31 PM : Nov 06, 2008
You''re right - McCain lost because in the end many voters had no idea who he really was and who they were voting for. A maverick who buys wholeheartedly into the giant socialist bailout of the banks? I guess it makes him a maverick conservative since he''s bucking the most basic instincts of those folks (and who should be supporting him over his lefty rival). Yup, McCain blew it in many ways. If he''d been smart he would have opposed this bailout and challenged Bernanke and Paulson on their assertions about how absolutely necessary it was. Those two dopes were telling us everything was fine just a few months earlier and then all of a sudden the sky is falling. If McCain had stood up to them he might have won this election. Instead he ended up an incomprehensible mess of contradictions.
Posted by easeup at 01:11 PM : Nov 06, 2008
No. The surge was never the driving force. It was the Sunnis who decided that being paid by the US military would be better than fighting against them. At the same time, al-Sadr called off the his insurgents and essentially stopped the fighting. It was calming down BEFORE the surge even began.
You really need to look at the timeline of events to get the correct pespective instead listening to political rhetoric.
Posted by CBSisPravda at 12:38 PM : Nov 06, 2008
Oh, he has plenty of gray matter on the north end - of that there is no doubt. The problem is that, like with most libs, it''s attached to quivering jelly on the south end. If anyone can find a way to pull defeat from the jaws of victory, it''s Barry.
I was a Republican not anymore, they are just too dense to learn quick enough.
I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.
Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that."
-Sen. John McCain, November 4, 2008
And now spurred on by a new President who said he will get us OUT of there, it will go even FASTER :)
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