Washington Post:
U.S. and Iraqi troops have pushed insurgents and other fighters out of about a third of Baghdad's neighborhoods under a three-month-old plan to pacify the city of 6 million people, according to a U.S. military report released yesterday.
In some parts of the city, military operations to gain control over contested areas have taken longer than projected before the Baghdad security plan started in February, both because of the number of U.S. and Iraqi troops available and the need to adjust to a constantly shifting insurgency, U.S. military officials said.
"One of our planning assumptions was that the Iraqi security forces would be able to hold [territory] in all areas, and we are finding that is not always the case," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the U.S. military command in Baghdad. "We are having to go back in and re-clear some areas," he said, adding that "slow progress is still progress."
The report by U.S. brigade and battalion commanders in Baghdad covers the last week of May and reflects a snapshot of the stage of operations in each of the city's 457 neighborhoods. It is "an internal tool" to track progress on a weekly basis and does not represent a formal assessment of the Baghdad security plan, Bleichwehl said. The report was first made public yesterday by the New York Times.
For each weekly report, the commanders gauge which neighborhoods fall into four distinct phases of military operations: disrupt, clear, control and retain.
As of the end of May, 156 neighborhoods were in the "disrupt" phase, which means to keep insurgents off balance until a full military presence can be established. Areas in that phase include much of Sadr City, where U.S. troops are conducting raids against militia leaders but have lacked manpower to sweep the large Shiite district of 2 million people.
An additional 155 neighborhoods were in the "clear" phase, in which the military goes block to block looking for weapons and fighters in order to eliminate resistance.
Commanders rated 128 neighborhoods as under "control," meaning U.S. and Iraqi forces could keep insurgents out and could protect the population. Eighteen neighborhoods were in the "retain" phase, which relies more heavily on Iraqi security forces and is aimed at ensuring that the area remains free of insurgents.
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When the U.S. military began planning late last year for an increase of about 28,700 troops in Iraq -- including about five brigades, or 17,500 combat troops, in Baghdad -- they estimated that operations to "clear" the capital would be completed by the end of July, the official said. Since then, key assumptions of the initial plan have changed, he said.
