UK Sees Tough Winter in Iraq

Nov 6, 2003
By Andrew Marshall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Washington is set to order thousands of troops to prepare for duty in Iraq next year, U.S. officials said, as Britain's top envoy in Baghdad warned of difficult months ahead due to persistent guerrilla attacks.

"I believe we are in for a rough winter," Sir Jeremy Greenstock told Britain's Times newspaper.

He said insurgents "want to try and close Baghdad down and make it look as though Iraq can't work with coalition forces," and added British troops could still be in Iraq in 2005.

U.S. Central Command said guerrillas firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two in an ambush south of Baghdad Wednesday evening. The attack brought to 139 the number of American soldiers killed in action since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.

The U.S. Army also said a soldier was killed Thursday when a military truck struck a land mine on a road near the border with Syria. It was not clear from the statement whether the land mine was placed there by anti-American guerrillas or was part of security measures at the border.

Faced with daily guerrilla attacks and a string of suicide bombings, the United States has been pushing for more countries to share the burden of policing Iraq, but with limited success.

Turkey initially agreed to send a large contingent, but Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council objected to the plan and says the idea has now been dropped.

U.S. officials did not give the number of American troops being called up for Iraq, but said they would include Marines as well as two regular Army divisions, the 1st Infantry Division in Germany and the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas.

Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stressed that the troops would be part of a 2004 Iraq rotation plan, and that the 132,000 American troops now there could decrease to just over 100,000 in May.


"We will be talking to Congress this afternoon and issuing orders tonight and having press briefings tomorrow on the next rotation of forces," Pace told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee Wednesday.


"It does include a call-up of reserves, it does include use of land forces, it does include the Navy and Air Force."


IRAQI FORCE MAY BE ESTABLISHED


A spokesman for Paul Bremer, the head of Iraq's U.S.-led postwar administration, said he was open to the creation of a new Iraqi security force to help root out guerrillas and foreign militants.


But Bremer was in talks with the Governing Council to ensure that such a force was not controlled by Iraqi political factions, was integrated into existing command structures and worked in coordination with U.S.-led troops, the spokesman said.

The Governing Council has repeatedly urged the creation of a paramilitary force to tackle the car bombings, gun attacks and other daily violence against U.S.-led forces, Iraqis working with them and international organizations.

They argue Iraq's police force is not sophisticated enough for the task while occupying troops lack the local intelligence to find supporters of ousted president Saddam Hussein or foreign Islamic fighters believed to be responsible for most attacks.

Greenstock criticized three of Iraq's neighbors -- Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- for not doing more to stem the flow of guerrillas into Iraq. The three countries were cooperating in "dribs and drabs," he said.

PRESSURE ON BUSH

The mounting U.S. death toll and failure to find any weapons of mass destruction have put pressure on President Bush, who will bid for re-election next year.

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Bush would make a speech Thursday calling for democracy across the Middle East and citing a failure of U.S. policy spanning 60 years in support of regimes not devoted to political freedom.

Rice told reporters most of Bush's speech would be about "the new opportunity for a forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East."

Bush has often talked about his hopes that democracy in Iraq would foster a democratic movement in the Middle East.

"After 60 years of trying to find stability through regimes that were not devoted to political liberty for their people, what we found is that we did not buy security and stability," Rice said.

Instead there was "frustration and pent-up emotions in a region that has fallen behind in terms of prosperity and in fact continues to produce ideologies of hatred," she said. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Vicki Allen and Thomas Ferraro in Washington, Pete Harrison in London and Andrew Gray in Baghdad)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20031106/wl_nm/iraq_dc