Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, who returned Sunday from his fourth visit to Iraq, said the troops should be moved to the perimeters of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, “where they can be ready to assist Iraqi forces but make the Iraqis realize they can’t be dependent on us.”
Declaring that insurgents and foreign jihadists “are killing us with
and suicide bombs because we’re on their turf and are not able to protect our troops,” Ruppersberger said that patrolling the perimeter of urban areas “would break the dependency the Iraqi military has on the American military. “This never will happen until we do that,” he said. “I don’t see any reason to keep patrolling the cities.
At the same time, Ruppersberger said he called on Iraq’s new government to order its 300,000-man army to take responsibility for patrolling the cities, where the bulk of deadly attacks on the U.S. military, Iraqi forces and civilians have occurred. Ruppersberger said both the U.S. commanders and Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, reacted favorably to his proposal.
“The generals told me that they can start implementing this except for certain areas,” which he declined to identify. He said his proposal, which he has also communicated to the White House and the Pentagon, “could have a lot of positive consequences. We could go after al Qaeda and focus on where the IEDs and suicide bombs are being made and who’s bringing them in.
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/060806/iraq.html
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