U.S. General Outlines Baghdad Security Handover Plan

Source: NYT/Reuters

By REUTERS
Published: October 24, 2007

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces hope to hand over half of Baghdad to Iraqi security control by the end of 2008, after violence in Iraq dropped to its lowest level since January 2006, the No. 2 U.S. general in Iraq said on Wednesday.

"We are anxious for them to take over full responsibility as they are anxious to take full responsibility," Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno, in charge of U.S. forces' day-to-day operations in Iraq, told a Baghdad news conference. "You will see steady progress over the next 12 months of us turning large portions of Baghdad (over) to Iraqi security forces as we continue to have success. I think it will be somewhere between 40 and 50 percent by the end of the year."

His comments are significant because stabilizing the capital, torn apart by sectarian violence, was the main goal of a 30,000-U.S. troop build-up that began in February, part of a plan to give feuding political leaders time to reconcile.

The comments are likely to be seized on by opponents of the war in the United States, who want Iraq's security forces to assume more responsibility so that U.S. troops can begin pulling out. Handing over security responsibility for the nation's capital would be a major step in that direction. Supporters of President George W. Bush's "surge" strategy will see Odierno's comments as evidence the plan is working. Bush has asked Americans to be patient and give the strategy time to bear fruit....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-handover.html

The main goal was to provide "breathing space for reconciliation" between Sunni and Shi'ah sectarians.

This has not occurred, and it is a journalistic farce that the same newspaper that earlier reported, correctly, the stated goal of the surge now revises history.

I give up.

and not a Times story.

Art.1) Duck and Cover.