General sees need for 20,000 more Iraqi troops

WASHINGTON – A senior U.S. military commander said Tuesday that Iraq’s army must expand its rolls by at least 20,000 more soldiers next year than Washington had anticipated, to help free U.S. troops from conducting daily patrols, checkpoints and other critical yet dangerous missions.

Even then, Iraq will remain incapable of taking full responsibility for its security for many years – five years in the case of protecting its airspace – and will require a long-term military relationship with the United States, said Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who until recently led the U.S. military’s training effort in Iraq.

Appearing before a House panel, Dempsey outlined his assessment of Iraq’s 348,000-strong security forces looking into 2008 and the prospects that they can take over for U.S. troops. He said the Iraqi forces are improving but are still riddled with sectarianism and corruption, and are suffering from a lack of leaders and the attrition of tens of thousands of members – including 32,000 police between mid-2005 and January.

His projection of the size of the police force required to help bring stability – 195,000 – is nearly 40 percent higher than Washington estimated in 2003. The remarks follow other blunt comments by U.S. military commanders that civilian deaths and attacks on U.S. troops have recently risen and that particularly tough fighting is expected in the coming months.

Building a competent Iraqi security force is at the center of the U.S. effort to turn over military operations, but serious gaps in the capability of Iraqi forces are limiting their role in pacifying Baghdad and safeguarding civilians under the counterinsurgency plan being implemented by the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, Dempsey said.

Describing the U.S. effort in Iraq as a labor of Sisyphus, he said the metaphoric stone is “probably rolling back a bit right now in Baghdad. But I don’t think it’s going to roll over us.”

Dempsey depicted the level of violence tolerated by Iraqis as “mind-numbing” and acknowledged that a dearth of security has made some Iraqis nostalgic for the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. “You’ll hear people say, ‘You know, we were a lot more secure and safe during the Saddam regime,’ ” he told the oversight panel of the House Armed Services Committee.

Fixing the security problems will require a major Iraqi effort, including another sizable boost in the manpower of Iraqi security forces beyond earlier goals set for 2006 and 2007, Dempsey said, with final decisions on the scope and composition to be made in discussions under way between U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials.