U.S. Forces Plan to Reduce Presence Inside Baghdad

[Barrett808]

U.S. Forces Plan to Reduce Presence Inside Baghdad
Sun Feb 1, 7:46 AM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces plan to reduce their visible presence inside Baghdad in the coming months by moving to the perimeter of the city, leaving the main responsibility for security to Iraqi forces, officials said Sunday.

U.S. occupying forces come under daily attack in Iraq (news - web sites) and the compound housing the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad has come under mortar attack on several occasions. A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people at a gate to the compound last month.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who arrived in Iraq Sunday, met military commanders on his third postwar visit to the country to see the situation on the ground and be briefed on plans for a massive rotation of forces in and out of Iraq.

By May there was expected to be a complete turnover of troops, but the numbers will be similar at about 110,000.

The 1st Armored Division is building six base camps on the edge of the city which will be taken over by the 1st Cavalry Division, "so that when our successors came in behind us they would be on the outside looking in. We were very much on the inside looking out," Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, told reporters with Wolfowitz.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=11&u=/nm/20040201/ts_nm/iraq_usa_troops_dc_1

[kalian]

1. Sound the retreat!

...

[grytpype]

2. see pic

[F.Gordon]

3. "postwar" visit? WTF!!!

I thought we were "at War"? Damn, I need to read the news more often. I didn't know "the War" ended. When did this happen?

..I think this is a STUPID-STUPID move. I aint no military expert, but it seems to me that a moving target is harder to hit than a static one. Concentrating all our ducks in a few areas is going to make it easier for the terrorists, err...thugs, err..insurgents to hit us.

[Chrysophylax]

4. Simple Strategy

1. Build an iraqi army / police force
2. Lock yourself inside bunkers far away from dangerous territories
3. Wait what happens
4. Use the daily attacks against iraqi "collaborates" as an excuse to keep the worthy geo-strategical position and stay forever there.

But this is tied with two problems:

1. Can you trust the iraqi army to protect the oil?
2. Civilian engineers and contractors (Halliburton) will become major targets!

I don't believe next U.S. President would leave from iraq. That would mean a defeat in the eyes of fundamentalists in the region

[pinto]

5. Fortress Baghdad, these sound somewhat permanent....n/t