Annie
Diamond Member
- Nov 22, 2003
- 50,848
- 4,828
- 1,790
I mean, should Congress read this?
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=484182dc-bf7c-42a7-ac74-9e270a9ef0f2
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=484182dc-bf7c-42a7-ac74-9e270a9ef0f2
HH: Welcome, General. You took over command of the multinational forces in February of this year, February 10. In the past five months, how have conditions in Iraq changed?
DP: Well, obviously, we have been surging our forces during that time. We have added five Army brigade combat teams, two Marine battalions, and a Marine expeditionary unit, and some enablers, as theyre called. And over the last month, that surge of forces has turned into a surge of offensive operations. And we have achieved what we believe is a reasonable degree of tactical momentum on the ground, gains against the principal near-term threat, al Qaeda-Iraq, and also gains against what is another near-term threat, and also potentially the long term threat, Shia militia extremists as well. As you may have heard, that today, we announced the capture of the senior Iraqi leader of al Qaeda-Iraq, and that follows in recent weeks the detention of some four different emirs, as theyre called, the different area leaders of al Qaeda, six different foreign fighter facilitators, and a couple dozen other leaders, in addition to killing or capturing hundreds of other al Qaeda-Iraq operatives.
HH: Do you think al Qaeda in Iraq is buckling, General Petraeus?
DP: Well, its probably too soon to say that, but we think that we have them off plan. Now having said that, they clearly retain and have demonstrated, tragically in recent, the past week or so, the ability to continue to carry out sensational attacks. They continue to demonstrate the ability to counterattack against our forces, and those of our coalition partners. But the detention, or the capture or killing of the number of leaders that we have taken out in recent months, and weeks, actually, and the progress in terms of just clearing areas of them as you know, Anbar Province has really become quite relatively clear of al Qaeda. Eastern Anbar still has some, and we are working in that area. We have recently cleared Western Baquba, which was almost al Qaeda central, the capitol of the new caliphate that they have tried to establish here in Iraq. So there has been considerable progress against them, but they do continue to receive foreign fighters through Syria, who become suicide bombers in many cases, and they do certainly have an ability to regenerate, to regroup, and to come back at us.
HH: General Petraeus, weve seen messages passed back and forth between al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and al Qaeda in Iraq. Do you consider them to be operating jointly?
DP: Well, there certainly is a level of direction that takes place, and there is a level of reporting from Iraq that goes back, and it does go back and forth. And periodically, youll see one of those released. More recently, as an example of the kind of direction, actually given by individuals coming into Iraq, there were the, we announced the killing of two, and it turns out three, actually, al Turki brothers. These are, not surprisingly, from Turkey originally, part of al Qaeda leadership, spent time in Afghanistan in past years, and were sent into Northern Iraq to help shore up the network up there after it took significant blows, particularly in the Mosul area. And weve managed to get the final fifty meters, if you will, on them after sort of pursuing them for some months, and did kill them several weeks ago.
HH: Do you see any evidence, General, that al Qaeda is now operating jointly with the Iranian regime? Thereve been some reports that in fact, they are now based, in some respects, within Iran and operating across the border with Iran.
DP: Well, there is an al Qaeda affiliate, I think is the best way to put it. Certainly, theyre under the overall banner of al Qaeda, an element formerly Ansar al Sunna, some of their members, another group affiliated with al Qaeda, that is located in Northwestern Iran, just east of the Iraqi border, east of the Iraqi-Kurdish province of Sulaymaniyah. They have come into Iraq. Our operators and Iraqi operators have conducted strikes against them. And we believe, in fact, that Iran may have actually taken some steps against them as well. Theyre not sitting there at the invitation of Iran, but its a very, very rugged area, and a fairly substantial area as well.
HH: General Petraeus, some of your staff have talked in recent weeks about Iranian government support for various elements of the enemy in Iraq, in the form of sophisticated explosives, some training. Has the amount of material and training from Iran to the enemy in Iraq increased or decreased over the past half year?
DP: Well, its hard to say. It certainly has not decreased, and its hard to say whether its increased or not, but it has remained very substantial. Its something we track, sometimes were able to interdict some of it, sometimes we capture it or literally stop it. We captured, for example the other day, several dozen rockets that were all set up on timers, and aimed at one of our bases, and some of our air assets happened to see them, and we were able to defuse them, all clearly from Iran. Iran has indeed provided substantial funding, training, equipping, arming, and even direction, in some cases, to what are called the special groups or secret cells affiliated with the militia of Muqtada al Sadr. We captured the heads of the secret cells, as you may recall, several months ago, the Khazali brothers. And with them, we captured a senior Lebanese Hezbollah trainer, the deputy head of the Lebanese Hezbollah department that was apparently created to help the Iranian Quds force, the element that does provide this training, equipping, money and direction to the Iraqi secret groups, or secret cells.
HH: General, what do you perceive to be Irans strategy in Iraq via that support and their other initiatives inside the new Iraq?
DP: Well, there are various theories on that, and one of those is actually that they may be somewhat conflicted. On the one hand, they should see a neighbor that is, that shares the same religious sect, fellow Shia, although Iraqis certainly are Arabs, and Iranians are obviously Persian. They should see a country that with which they actually already have considerable commercial trade and exchange, and great interest in, in that regard, but they also see a country that has certainly ties to the United States, and one whose democracy is very, very different from the form of government, of course, that you find in Iran, where the senior clerics actually run the country, as you know. And so they, there is discussion about whether they are trying, in a sense, to use certain elements to Hezbollah. Hezbollah is in certain parts of Iran. If they just dont or Iraq if they just dont want Iraq to do that well, perhaps, certainly want to give the United States a black eye, a variety of different motivations, we believe. And again, perhaps even a degree of confliction, given that a number of Iraqs senior leaders has close ties to Iran in the past, located in Iran during Saddams day, and certainly have close relationships with various Iranian leaders, and share the religious sect of Shia Islam as well.
HH: Do you have the authority that you need, General, for hot pursuit, or to take the defensive actions necessary to protect American troops and the Iraqi government from Iranian intermeddling?
DP: Well, we certainly have the authority that we need to conduct operations in Iraq against anyone who threatens our forces or Iraqi forces. And in fact, we have done that, as I think you know
HH: Right.
DP: We detained, for example, five members of the Iranian Quds force that were in Iran, and that we believe were tied into this greater network that has provided this arming, funding, training and direction to the secret cells or special groups associated with Sadrs militia.
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