U.S. General: 'There's No Silver-Bullet Answer'
U.S. News Pentagon correspondent Anna Mulrine recently spoke from Baghdad with Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the senior American commander in Iraq responsible for training and equipping Iraqi security forces. Here are excerpts from their discussion:
On the Iraq Study Group findings due out this week:
I've been here three years, and there has been a pretty steady stream of assessments. And in almost every case, these assessments, studies, groups provide some aspect that is useful to us–and some things we've already thought about and just didn't decide to do. There's no silver-bullet answer here, and I think you'll find that in the study group and in the other studies ongoing by General Pace's staff.
So it seems to me the question is how important is Iraq to us right now. And I think Iraq is extraordinarily important. I spent the two years before I came here in Saudi Arabia, and it seems to me that Iraq has the best chance in the region of becoming a country that's built and operated on democratic principles, human rights, rule of law, and so forth.
That doesn't mean we're going to pull it off, but it means it's got the best chance. And as long as Iraq doesn't give up on itself–and I don't feel that it has yet–then I don't think we should give up on Iraq. If Iraq gives up on itself–the government disbands, the military fragments–then I think we're in a different situation.
On militia infiltration within the Ministry of the Interior:
The degree of infiltration is not a concern. And what I mean by that is, there is absolutely no reason why a former member of the militia, or the insurgency for that matter, couldn't lay down his weapons, walk into a recruiting station, pass all the qualifications, and end up in the Army, or the police for that matter.
It seems to me that the issue we're all concerned about is the degree of militia influence on serving members of the Army and police. And there's at least two kinds of influence. There's what I would describe as passive influence–which is to say, turning a blind eye to the activities of militia–allowing them to go through checkpoints, things like that. Then there's active participation–where they might let them use uniforms, let them use vehicles, or participate themselves.
The answer to all that is probably a few things. No. 1, it's leaders. Obedience is an extraordinarily important value in their value system, far more important than ours. So we've got to get at the leaders. Secondly, militias exist when in the eyes of the people the standing government isn't providing something–and in this case that something would be security. So we've got to continue to demonstrate to the people by accelerated transition to legitimate Iraqi security force control–because the more the Iraqi government can be seen as being in charge, the more the people will gain confidence in them, and the better off we'll be in terms of dealing with the militias.
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