2-star: Anbar lacks Iraqi government support

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2-star: Anbar lacks Iraqi government support
By Chelsea J. Carter - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jan 8, 2009 19:44:55 EST

BAGHDAD — The top American commander in the former insurgent stronghold of Anbar said Wednesday the Shiite-led government should have poured reconstruction money into the Sunni region after Sunni fighters joined forces with U.S. troops to chase al-Qaida out of the western province.

Marine Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly told The Associated Press that his greatest “mission failure” was his inability to bring together the government in Baghdad and the Sunnis in Anbar to take advantage of the steep decline in violence.

“What the Iraqi government in Baghdad should have done is said Anbar is getting peaceful, let’s commit,” Kelly told the AP in a telephone interview from his headquarters southwest of Baghdad, as he begins to make preparations to hand over command of 23,000 Marines next month to Maj. Gen. Richard T. Tyron.

“It drives me to distraction,” he said. “I would count it as a mission failure.”

Although Kelly said his mission did not include asking the central government for more money for the Sunni province, he was clearly frustrated by the lack of progress — a schism that stems from decades of brutal oppression of Shiites under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/01/ap_anbarcommander_010809/%2e