The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) April 21, 2003
Army Relieves Marines; Will U.S. Stay Months, Or Years?
From Our Press Services
The U.S. Army brigade that seized Baghdad's international airport in heavy fighting two weeks ago moved into the eastern half of the capital Sunday, taking over security duties from U.S. Marines.
On taking over security in Baghdad, the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade quickly began making its presence felt, positioning tanks and other armored vehicles around banks, hospitals and other key installations to prevent looting.
"We have not had any reports of looting today," said Col. Will Grimsley, the brigade commander. He said an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew imposed two nights ago appears to be helping to reduce the looting, which was rampant across Baghdad in the days after U.S. forces seized the capital.
As a degree of normalcy returned, retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the man charged with running Iraq until the Iraqis form their own government, arrived in Baghdad today. His mission is to preside over a U.S. presence as long as is necessary to ensure a transition to a stable democratic government.
How long that might be was a subject of growing debate Sunday.
One influential Bush adviser on Iraq said Sunday that the United States might be able to pull out of Iraq within "a matter of months," but other experts predicted an American military presence of at least two years and quite possibly longer.
Richard Perle, a member of the Bush administration's Defense Policy Board, said the transition to Iraqi rule "could be short, a matter of months. I would hope it would be only a matter of months.
"The sooner we can leave, the better, and we can leave as soon as there is an Iraqi government or even an interim Iraqi government in place," he said on NBC's Meet the Press.
But Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and a pro-American former exile who has returned to Baghdad, said on ABC's This Week that U.S. troops need to stay until an election is held. That, he said, "should take two years."
And former secretary of State Henry Kissinger predicted that U.S. troops would stay more than two years, noting that troops have been in Bosnia for six years.
"It will be necessary to establish a government and to help to protect that government against people who are trying to overthrow the system that is emerging," Kissinger said on CNN's Late Edition.
Iraqi religious and political leaders launched talks on a new government last week, but satisfying the demands of competing religious and ethnic groups and a secular middle class won't be easy, said Daniel Goure, a military analyst and vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank.
The Pentagon hopes to turn over control of Iraq to an interim government in 120 days, according to one defense official, but Goure called that overly optimistic.
"Look at what we experienced in the Balkans, and we didn't have a lot of the problems we are facing now," he said.
Troops will be needed to stabilize Iraq and to hedge against the possibility of military action against Iran or Syria, said John Pike, military analyst with GlobalSecurity. org, a research group in Washington.
"The notion that we might have 100,000 troops celebrating Thanksgiving in Iraq is very easy to believe," he said.
In an interview at his new headquarters at an Interior Ministry complex, Grimsley, the brigade commander, said curfew violators in Baghdad were being detained overnight, then released in the morning with a warning.
The Marines who had been in eastern Baghdad pulled out to consolidate in the southern half of the country under a U.S. military redeployment plan. Army units will control all of this sprawling capital of 5 million people, as well as the northern half of Iraq.
The redeployment sharply reduces the number of troops in Baghdad. Commanders did not release figures on the size of the reduction.
Troops of the 3rd Infantry Division were safeguarding museums, government buildings and other key sites, including banks stocked with large quantities of gold bullion.
"We're trying to saturate the streets with Americans, not huddle in our enclaves," Grimsley said. With self-protection the top priority of U.S. soldiers here, "sometimes the natural inclination is to huddle behind walls," he said.
But it is important to get out and show that the 3rd Infantry Division troops are providing security, he added.
Although heavy gunfire of uncertain origin was heard late Saturday and tracer bullets lit up the night sky - "Beirut rain," Grimsley called it, referring to formerly war-torn Lebanon - the reception for his brigade has been largely positive, he said.
"The people here are generally very friendly, or at least neutral," Grimsley said. "And I'm more than willing to accept neutral."
In other developments:
The Army's 101st Airborne Division found 1,000 to 2,000 suicide bomb vests at an undisclosed location south of Baghdad. The vests were loaded with explosives and detonation devices.
Syrian President Bashar Assad told two visiting U.S. lawmakers that his country will not protect any Iraqi war criminals. Top Bush administration officials have warned Syria bluntly in recent days that they expect cooperation from him on many fronts.
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