Interview with Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz
Linda Robinson spoke with Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, commander of the Multinational Corps in Iraq. The following are excerpts from their discussion:
On the counterinsurgency effort:
The prize for victory is so great it is worth the investment. We're not talking about one country, Iraq. We are talking about major change in a key part of the world – helping the Middle East get out of stagnation. This catalyst called Iraq can do that, I think.
To create what I just described, the most important organization is the whole policing function. Along with it must come a judiciary system, to have a way to lawfully and legally impose those laws. You've got to build a judicial mechanism that supports and enhances the law. The police is the part of the Iraqi security force that will beat the insurgency. It is what gives the people confidence that they'll be protected and not kidnapped and murdered and intimidated. So to me, developing the Iraqi police has got to be very high on the priority list. And what makes the police and army function correctly is an intelligence apparatus that functions correctly – to direct the kinetic arm of force – in a way that supports the people and does not repress the people. And that is really tricky in this society because they haven't done it before.
They [Iraqis] are still sitting on the fence, they're all sitting there on the fence watching both sides. The other lines of operations – governance, economy, and information – must work in parallel and complement the security line; the other lines have not come along as quickly as I would have liked.
[The insurgency] is being sustained because everybody is still on the fence, because the whole package hasn't come together yet. Who has got the will to win this thing?
Victory is so important to the free world and the future of the Middle East, we have to have the will to win. We can't get weak-kneed a couple years into this one battle in the global war on terror.
On U.S. troop levels:
I think we'll need the 130,000 level through the summer for sure and probably for most of 2005. The rotation of units in a year from now could look much different than they do now.
You can pile on thousands of troops all over the place. I just don't think that is going to win it for us, because the Iraqis must take on the responsibility to manage and run their country.
I need more Level 1 interpreters, skilled pol-mil advisers at higher headquarters and cultural advisers down to the company level, but no one can fill these requirements; they're not available.
On Iraqi security forces:
We all know we've got to grow the Iraqi capacity, so how do you best do that? That's the real issue.
Today we have 21 [battalions] out of training [for a total of 68]... . Having said that, a critical number of them went AWOL, so they're not at 100 percent strength. So Dave Petraeus has developed a direct recruiting effort to fill these vacancies quickly.
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