Gen. David Petraeus on the Situation in Iraq

I pulled the following quotes off the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) web site; they’re excerpts from a WSJ interview with Gen. David Petraeus, the most senior U.S. military commander in Iraq. For those who are interested, there is a related story in the November 21, 2007 issue of the WSJ.

All quotes are by Gen. Petraeus; the reader can interpret each quote for her or himself.

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On Al Qaeda in Iraq:

At some point there has to be a sign to the people that security is enabling the beginnings of a better life, which obviously garners their support for the security effort. I do think there has been a pretty substantial recognition among Sunni Arabs, in particular, that al Qaeda Iraq is not for them. They have looked at it as they did not it in the past. In the past they saw it as synonymous with resistance. They now look at it as what it is -- a Taliban-like extremist terrorist movement. They don't subscribe to the ultra-extremist form of religion that it embraces, and they have turned away from it.

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I think al Qaeda Iraq remains a very significant element of the security situation in Iraq… It has a regenerative capacity that has to be reckoned with. But it is a threat that has been diminished over the past six to eight months in particular . . .

It did certainly ignite horrific ethno-sectarian violence and it gave a justification for militia extremists on the Shia side to take action to protect the population. As that threat to the population is removed, you also find, therefore, less support for militia extremists because they're also gangs, basically, uneducated, violent emotional thugs with guns. The reduction of that threat is very significant, but [it] is still there and is something we can't take our eye off.

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There are people that argue that the Sunni populations in particular have begun to reject al Qaeda more broadly as well. This is not like ceasing an objective where it's said and done. This is a long struggle, and it's a struggle of ideas, of ideologies, extremism on one side, pragmatism or moderation on the other. It's about opportunities, it's about economics, it's about employment, it's about education. It takes a vast effort to address the conditions that made certain areas vulnerable to the bin Laden's of the world and the Zarqawis.

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On Progress:

Over time, it all just accumulates. This is not a light switch. You don't go from bad to good. You go from bad to less bad. And then you revert again. Progress accumulates over time. You can build on momentum as it is established. As shops get back into business . . . and some services . . .

It all just accumulates slowly, but surely if you can keep building on the momentum that you've achieved, and that's what we've tried to do, obviously.

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I don't think there's anyone -- the Iraqis included -- who is satisfied with the progress that's been made.

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On Troop Reductions:

We want to maintain the gains that have been made and in fact to build on them. And that means as our forces are thinned out -- and that's the way to of it, rather than just sort of wholesale pulling out of the area. You try to stick in the neighborhood with a smaller presence but thickened by greater support of the local people; increased quality and quantity of ISF; perhaps some continued form of CLC; improved economic conditions.

There's no magic formula or template. You're going to look at each area and the security threats which are much more than al Qaeda.

I'm not out to make predictions from this vantage point of what will happen in every place.
We're not going to be able to maintain all of those. There will clearly be places where we'll have to hand off the joint security stations to Iraqis and then there will be places where we very much want to keep those. And you'll have different models in different places, and that's OK.

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We'll continue to reduce forces . . . It won't all come out of one location. We've already been reposturing because Diyala remains one of those places where we have serious concerns. There are a lot of challenges throughout Diyala.

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On Iran and Other Neighbors:

Iran has clearly made commitments. The massive weapons caches that we found and displayed did appear to come over before those commitments were made. Having said that, there is very much a wait-and-see attitude by everyone involved to see will Iran live up to those commitments not to train, equip, fund and direct militia extremists in Iraq, and we have concerns about that, certainly. At a time when Sadr has told them to cease fire, its very important that Iran not add fuel to the fire. There have been reductions in certain categories of attacks associated with weapons provided by Iran and groups that trained in Iran. It's difficult to tell how much of that is due to the Sadr cease-fire, how much is due to the possible reduction in arming, training, funding, and how much is due to operations by Iraqi and coalition forces against some of the elements that have broken the cease fire . . .

We have a formula to estimate how many foreign fighters come in a month. We think there's been a reduction by a third or maybe more than that, but this is very much an approximation based on suicide bomber attacks, which are often carried out by foreigners. In general, the intelligence is that we have seen a reduction in that flow. As always, there is no single factor.

There does appear to have been more robust action by Syria against some foreign fighter networks. We killed the emir southwest of Baghdad, Abu Tenasi, and then we captured all the records, we did enormous damage to their command and control structure. It's the cumulative impact of what's been done here, and there have been some actions taken by source countries to make it harder for military-age males to travel from a city to Damascus on a one-way airticket. And then to tighten the border ports of entry to Iraq, to look at traditional smuggling routes. That's a campaign within a campaign.

They made promises at the highest levels of the Iranian government to the highest levels of the Iraqi government. These were unequivocal pledges to stop the funding, training, arming and directing of militia extremists in Iraq. It will be hugely significant to see if that's the case. We have some doubts. Everyone is waiting to see, frankly, what is the evidence. (End of Gen. Petraeus quotes.)