Baghdad security push falls short, assessment finds

BAGHDAD -- Three months after the start of the security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city's neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.

The summary , completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces are able to "to protect the population" and "maintain physical influence over" 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.

In the remaining 311 neighborhoods, troops have either not begun operations aimed at rooting out insurgents or still face "resistance," according to the one-page assessment, which summarized reports from brigade and battalion commanders in Baghdad.

The assessment offers the first comprehensive look at the progress of the effort to stabilize Baghdad with the heavy influx of additional troops. The last remaining American contributions to the troop increase are just now arriving.

Violence has diminished in many areas but is especially chronic in mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods in western Baghdad, several senior officers said. Overall, improvements have not yet been as widespread or lasting across Baghdad, they acknowledged.

The operation "is at a difficult point right now, to be sure," said Major General Vincent K. Brooks, the deputy commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, which has responsibility for Baghdad, in an interview.

He said that, while military planners had expected to make greater gains by now, that has not been possible in large part because Iraqi police and army units, which were expected to handle basic security tasks, such as manning checkpoints and conducting patrols, have not been provided all the forces promised and in some cases, have performed poorly.

That is forcing American commanders to conduct operations to remove insurgents from some areas multiple times. The heavily Shiite security forces have also repeatedly failed to intervene in some areas when fighters who fled or laid low when the American troops arrived resumed sectarian killings.

When planners designed the Baghdad security plan late last year, they had assumed most Baghdad neighborhoods would be under control around July, according to a senior American military officer, so the emphasis could shift into restoring services and rebuilding the neighborhoods as the summer progressed.

Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno, the senior American ground commander in Iraq, said in a brief interview that he never believed that a midsummer timetable for establishing security in Baghdad was realistic. "This was always going to be conditions-driven," he said, noting that he always had expected it would take until fall to establish security across much of the city.

But in order to meet that timetable, he added that the Iraqi Security Forces would have to make strides in coming months at maintaining security.