The Attacks on The U.S In Iraq

[Aimster]

There are barely anymore reports of attacks on the U.S troops. What happend? After the election everything was bad for a week and then all of a sudden everything stopped. The headlines no longer read "Attack in Iraq".

The only thing I read about was oil being set on fire.

Does this mean Iraqis can soon takeover the security of their country and the U.S can go home?

 

[yllus]

Increased threat of terror in Europe during year-end holidays:

In the longer term, according to the [European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center], January 2005 through June 30 will see an increase in the threat level as hundred of "jihadi" volunteers start leaving Iraq.

As reported by UPI on Dec. 13, the Brussels-based security firm confirms that returning foreign fighter from Iraq is cause for concern. The report states that the U.S. attack on Fallujah broke the infrastructure that supported the foreign fighters. Estimates on the number of volunteers who went to fight U.S. forces varies between 1,500 and 3,000.

According to ESISC, about 1,200 of these fighters were killed during the November assault on Fallujah. The report states that the U.S. assault on Fallujah has denied them a base of operation. However, a recent report from Iraq indicates that the insurgency appears to be rebasing in Mosul and other cities.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Aimster
There are barely anymore reports of attacks on the U.S troops. What happend? After the election everything was bad for a week and then all of a sudden everything stopped. The headlines no longer read "Attack in Iraq".

The only thing I read about was oil being set on fire.

Does this mean Iraqis can soon takeover the security of their country and the U.S can go home?

The attacks do appear to have slowed, I would say it is still too early to tell.

linkage

Starting five days ago, two Iraqi battalions began assuming control of an infamous area of inner Baghdad surrounding Haifa Street that has become a battle zone between insurgents and coalition forces. The handover should be completed within another week.

The move is the first step in a much broader post-election plan to scale back the US military presence in towns across rebellious central Iraq, leaving behind ?advisers? to help the Iraqi Army to take over security duties.

I expect to see more of this as time passes.

 

[conjur]

Iraq Insurgents Can Conduct 60 Strikes Daily -Pentagon
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7666210

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has found that Iraqi insurgents can conduct up to 60 strikes a day and occasionally more, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Thursday.

"We've tracked the number of attacks per day and what they can do is 50 to 60 attacks that they are able to conduct countrywide, with spikes. And that seems to be their capacity," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Myers, who testified with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, characterized the insurgency fighting some 150,000 U.S. forces in Iraq as "a limited capacity."

He said it was difficult to determine the number of insurgents in Iraq because "they don't have a central organization ... so as you pick up insurgents and you debrief them and you find what they have in their rooms and on their computers, you don't find the wiring diagram."

Rumsfeld on Wednesday told a House of Representatives committee he did not "have a lot of confidence" in the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency estimates on the number of insurgents, which are classified.

Lawmakers have been pressing the Pentagon to provide more information on the type of insurgency U.S. forces have been fighting in Iraq since the U.S.-led March 2003 invasion.

"Shouldn't the American people also know the size and shape and nature of the enemy that we're facing, since it's their sons and daughters who are going to serve?" Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said.

"It would be nice to have a hard number, but my fear is that the number would change from week to week," Rumsfeld responded. "They're not static. The numbers change," he said, declining to publicly answer lawmakers who asked him the numerical strength of the insurgency.

Myers said he believed the number of "hard core" insurgents that "are going to have to be captured or killed" was a small percentage of the insurgency.

Myers also told the committee that some Army reserve units are not at desirable readiness because of equipment shortages as some units leave their gear in Iraq.

"It does create a shortage back here. And we know we have shortages we have to fill," Myers said. "So there'll be time when units are below the desired levels of readiness."

He said the $82 billion emergency spending bill the Bush administration is seeking mostly for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan was "crucial" to filling the shortages.

Myers also said he felt the administration's proposed increase in cash payments to families of U.S. forces killed in combat should be applied more broadly.

"I think a death gratuity that applies to all service members is preferable to one that's targeted just to those that might be in a combat zone," Myers said. "You go where they send you. And it's happenstance that you're in a combat zone or you're at home.

Eeerily similar to the underestimating and propaganda during Vietnam.