IRAQ:US-led soldiers control only about a third of Baghdad, the military said yesterday, almost four months into a security crackdown during which troops are dying at rates not seen for more than two years.
More than 18,000 extra US troops have been deployed around Baghdad as part of the campaign, which began in mid-February and is seen as a last-ditch attempt to drag Iraq back from the brink of all-out sectarian civil war.
The last of five brigades to be deployed in the crackdown will be in place soon, military spokesman Lieut-Col Christopher Garver said, adding that it would not be possible to judge the crackdown's success until all units were in place.
"Obviously we're constantly doing an assessment of the plan, but that plan doesn't kick in until everyone's here. We control about a third of the neighbourhoods," he said.
The New York Times reported earlier yesterday that according to an internal military assessment and local commanders, US and Iraqi troops controlled 146 of Baghdad's 457 neighbourhoods.
The paper said the military assessment showed that troops had either not begun operations or still faced resistance in the capital's remaining 311 neighbourhoods. It said military planners had hoped most Baghdad neighbourhoods would be under control by about July. "We were way too optimistic," it quoted one unidentified officer as saying, adding that September was a more realistic goal.
"That's kind of like a snapshot, those numbers are going to change the more you're working through those neighbourhoods," Lieut-Col Garver said. He had not seen the military assessment, he added.
- (Reuters)