US commander takes a wait-and-see approach

BAGHDAD -- General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said yesterday that he would examine "some months" from now whether to seek an extension of the administration's troop increase, and that he had no plans to request additional forces.

"If you're going to achieve the kinds of effects that we probably need," Petraeus said during his first press conference since taking command a month ago, the increased troop level "would need to be sustained certainly for some time well beyond the summer."

The statement represented a shift from his predecessor's assessment of when results would be visible. General George W. Casey Jr. said in January: "It's probably going to be the summer, late summer, before we get to the point where the people in Baghdad feel safe in their neighborhoods."

Petraeus requested the additional troops to implement a counterinsurgency strategy that calls for deploying forces in small bases and outposts among civilians in order to protect them from militants.

By raising the possibility of extending the increase, Petraeus is addressing a key concern of US military officials that Iraqi insurgents and militias will simply wait out the Baghdad security plan being implemented by US and Iraqi forces.

In recent weeks there have been indications that militias, especially anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, are lying low while the US military boosts its troop levels in Baghdad. One perceived advantage that militias and insurgents have over the US military is that they are operating on a longer time span, and have more patience than the Americans.

Yet if Petraeus does recommend later this year to keep troop numbers at a higher level into the winter and perhaps beyond, and the Bush administration accepts that proposal, providing the extra soldiers would place new strains on the Army and Marine Corps. Troops would have to be sent back to Iraq sooner than planned, perhaps with their training curtailed.

Petraeus also said 2,200 new military police will be arriving in Baghdad in a few months to support the 21,500 additional troops being deployed to secure Baghdad and other volatile areas of Iraq.

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England told US lawmakers this week that as many 7,000 additional support troops would be sent to Iraq to back up the extra combat personnel being deployed.

Petraeus said two of the five US Army combat brigades being deployed to Baghdad had entered the capital, along with increased numbers of Iraqi troops. He said all the new US troops, including about 4,000 Marines, would be in place in June.

He did not confirm a report in yesterday's New York Times saying that his second-in-command, Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, has recommended that the additional US troops stay in Iraq through February 2008.

"I have certainly not reached a conclusion yet about that," Petraeus said.

He said he and Odierno discussed troop levels yesterday morning "and right now we do not see other requests looming out there." Petraeus added: "We're some months from starting -- from saying, OK, let's continue at this level, or determine what else we might do."

US and Iraqi officials say they believe militia and insurgent leaders have left Baghdad to avoid the temporary troop increase. Petraeus said commanders are watching areas outside the capital.

"The belt areas obviously have to get attention, and that includes portions of Diyala Province," he said. "Those areas over which we have concerns will see additional forces flowing into them."

Petraeus also said yesterday that military efforts need to be coupled with political reforms, including the absorption of what he termed "reconcilable" outlaw groups into society.

Petraeus, who left Iraq nearly a year and a half ago at the close of a previous tour, said he was struck by the sight of some neighborhoods in the capital.

"I must tell you that I was taken aback by what I saw in driving around," he said, listing several sectors of the city that were once heavily populated by Sunnis or that were home to people of both sects. "When I left 17 months ago now, there certainly was not the kind of emptiness in some of the neighborhoods of Baghdad."