Iraq Drawdown Begins

There is a tiny bit of brightness in the announcement that a drawdown of troops would begin when the 1st Cavalry returns to Fort Hood, Texas, and will not be replaced.


Commanders in Iraq have decided to begin the drawdown of U.S. forces in volatile Diyala province, marking a turning point in the U.S. military mission. Instead of replacing the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, which is returning to its home base at Fort Hood, Texas, in December, soldiers from another brigade in Salahuddin province next door will expand into Diyala, thereby broadening its area of responsibility, several officials said Tuesday. In this way, the number of Army ground combat brigades in Iraq will fall from 20 to 19. This reflects President Bush's bid to begin reducing the American military force and shifting its role away from fighting the insurgency toward more support functions like training and advising Iraqi security forces.

The Iraq drawdown is to begin in December and be completed by July 2008 under a plan recommended by General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, which was announced in September.
In remarks at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Lieutenant-General Carter Ham, the chief of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the withdrawal pace "isn't mechanical" and will depend on the security situation.

However, there were other bad events in Iraq today and they include :

At least 11 people, including five of a family, have been killed in a fresh spate of violence in Iraq, sources said Monday. Shia guerrillas attacked a US military base in southern Iraq's Diwaniyah city killing six people and injuring 14, a police source said. Militiamen of the Mahdi Army, loyal to radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, fired some dozen mortar rounds on the US-run base and a nearby joint security centre, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The US troops in the base also traded mortar rounds with the attackers, said the source. Several houses and civilian cars were damaged. The US military had no immediate comment on the incident. Diwaniyah, the capital of the al-Qadsiyah province, has been a flashpoint for rival Shia factions battling for supremacy in the region. It has also seen heavy clashes between guerrillas and joint US and Iraqi security forces.

A suicide car bomb struck a house of an Iraqi police officer in an area in Anbar province, killing him and four of his family members and wounding eight people, a provincial police source said. The bomber blew up his explosives-laden car near the house of a police major in the town of al-Baghdadi, 150 km (90 miles) west of Baghdad. The powerful blast also damaged five nearby houses, the source said, adding security forces immediately imposed curfew in the town for fear of more attacks. Insurgents frequently attack Iraqi security forces, accusing them of collaboration with the US troops.



So while there is some positive movement toward bringing our troops home, it is still likely to be a long, hit and miss, process.



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