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LT. GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, US ARMY: The situation in
Iraq is dire. The stakes are high. There are no easy
choices. The way ahead will be very hard, but hard is
not hopeless.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TOM FOREMAN: That was General David Petraeus on
January 23rd as he was taking on the task of
implementing a new strategy in Iraq. We figured that
if we wanted to explain what's worked and what's
hasn't, first we should remind you what that plan
was. CNN's senior military correspondent Jamie
McIntyre is here to help me lay it all out. Let's
turn to the map first, Jamie. Tell us what it looked
like before and then what has happened under
Petraeus.
JAMIE McINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The United States
strategy was to have forward bases in areas where
U.S. troops would be located, but the Petraeus
strategy is to take those bases and move them really
into the local level, divide them into areas where
you see here is the number of bases around Baghdad
before the surge and here is what it looks like after
the surge.
FOREMAN: It's a lot more.
McINTYRE: A lot more, but it's not just a lot more.
It's that they stay in these areas and you can see as
we put these yellow circles around the sort of area
of influence of each one of these bases. As these
sort of ink blots sort of blend together, it's
supposed to stitch together into a fabric of less
violence. We've seen that a little bit.
FOREMAN: What is the theory of having these people in
these neighborhoods? What difference does that make?
McINTYRE: Because you have to give the people in the
neighborhoods enough confidence that they can live
their daily lives, and really the measure of success
in Iraq is to the extent that people can live normal
lives and then participate in a political process.
That's the linchpin for the political reconciliation
that has been so difficult to achieve.
FOREMAN: I want to turn to the other wall over here
and look at some of the main points of what the
strategy is going to be as set out in January 2007:
security of the population -- the thing you
mentioned, Jamie -- commanders learning their areas
really well, maintaining a persistent presence.
Beyond that, they wanted to look at economic
reconstruction, jobs -- building them there --
working with tribes against al Qaeda, and getting
breathing space for a political solution to maybe
being worked out. What is the sense in the Pentagon
in terms of how they've met those goals through this
maneuver?
McINTYRE: Well, they've met the maintaining
persistent presence. You've seen that, and it's
created the breathing space, but that has not
produced the political reform and that's why this
coming week you're going to see General David
Petraeus not make any recommendation to draw down the
number of U.S. troops, not even by a battalion until
they see more progress. He says there's a long way to
go. It hasn't worked out as fast as he had hoped and
he's going to push to keep those troops there a bit
longer.
FOREMAN: OK, so now we have a look at where we've
been. Let's look at where we might be going in all of
this. CNN's Michael Ware joins us from Baghdad right
now and from the "Washington Post" studio Rajiv
Chadrasekaran, the former Baghdad bureau chief for
the newspaper and author of "Imperial Life in the
Emerald City." Rajiv, let me start with you in terms
of this notion of returning normal life to the people
on the street of Baghdad or the rest of Iraq? How
much success have we had on that front?
RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, WASHINGTON POST: Well, it's
happening in fits and starts. There are pockets.
There are enclaves of Baghdad where things are
starting to get back to normal, but then again, what
is normal? I mean, in some markets more shops are
reopening, but still, there is an atmosphere of fear,
of deep uncertainty and there remains a deep distrust
between Iraq's principal groups, the Shiite Arabs and
the Sunni Arabs. You know, normalcy is still, quite
frankly, a long way off.
FOREMAN: Michael, you talked a great deal about that
deep distrust. As the months have gone on, even if we
accept the general report that things are getting
somewhat less violent, has that mistrust dampened at
all or has it deepened?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, to be honest,
Tom, I mean, from the beginning if you speak to
various elements of the Sunni insurgency and various
elements of the Shia militias, if you can take them
at their word and indeed, sometimes by their deeds,
you can see that to them this isn't about Sunni
versus Shia. They didn't so much share that divide
before. In fact, they collaborated together against
the U.S. forces in the past. They still don't have
that at their heart now, but that's where the
political path has taken them. It's the extremists on
both sides who are currently dominating the political
agenda and until recently, have dominated the
military agenda, too.
In terms of the surge, yeah, it's achieved some of
the limited military goals it set out to achieve, but
let's bear in mind as Rajiv said, we're talking about
enclaves. This city has been divided along sectarian
lines. Sunni are looking after Sunni. Shia are
looking after Shia. The American forces are
maintaining their presence and babysitting the
government forces who comprise many of these death
squads. They're keeping the Shia militias at bay
while America is supporting the development of Sunni
militias to protect their communities. That's how
these numbers are coming down and of course that's
bound to have long-term implications.
FOREMAN: Rajiv, one of the things that has been
raised over and over again has been this idea of
partitioning the country. It was rejected early on
and yet, de facto, what Michael is saying, is it's
kind of happening anyway. Why don't we look more
seriously at a soft partitioning of the country and
say let's calm down the Shia area, calm down the
Sunnis, calm down the Kurds, who are doing pretty
well on that front anyway, and then negotiate a
unified government from that?
CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, you know, that is an idea that
is gaining a little bit more traction here in
Washington and elsewhere. It's the dirty little
option that nobody really wants to talk about too
much in public, but in private I hear from a number
of people I talk to that it is an idea that is
gaining a little bit more currency and it's happening
in a de facto way. As Michael points out, Baghdad is
partitioning as a city into Sunni neighborhoods and
Shiite neighborhoods and by the security deals that
the United States is engaged in. I mean, these deals
that we've been making with Sunni tribal leaders in
al Anbar province to go after al Qaeda terrorists and
deals that we're striking with Shiite groups in other
parts of the country, the creation of these sort of
neighborhood or community-wide security forces, those
are effectively sectarian forces and so what you are
doing is you are creating essentially a security
structure that is more sectarian-based and those are
the initial steps that one takes in the direction of
moving toward something of a soft partition.
FOREMAN: Jamie, as we look at this sort of soft
partitioning we're talking about, there's been a lot
of success over here in the Sunni areas by changing
the approach with the tribal leaders there. Is there
a sense in the Pentagon of people saying, look,
whatever your politics are going to be in this
country in terms of calming it down, we've got to go
this way?
McINTYRE: Not yet. It's going to happen by the spring
if we haven't seen the results that were hoped for
and it's as Rajiv says, it's sort of the dirty little
plan B that nobody wants to talk is that whether the
U.S. wants this or not, that might be the de facto
result if this surge strategy fails and some people
say maybe it would be better.
FOREMAN: I want to take one quick moment here to
listen to something the president said on Monday
about the possibility of pulling troops out and get
your reaction, Jamie. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If
the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it
will be possible to maintain the same level of
security with fewer American forces.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Very briefly, Jamie, how is that being
greeted in the Pentagon?
McINTYRE: That's seen as a lot of weasel talk. It's
-- if the same level of security continues, if things
go as we hope, then things will be better, but what
Iraq has shown consistently is that things don't go
as they hope.
FOREMAN: And Michael, do you think that's something
we can count on in the future, that things will, once
again, not go as we hope, or is it just simply that
we can't predict where we're going to be in a few
months?
WARE: Well, I think you can rely on the fact that
however this situation devolves in the future, it's
not going to be suiting U.S. interests. That is,
unless America takes this moment, perhaps one of its
last, to use some decisive action, to arrest the
momentum and turn it back their way, but quite
frankly, we're just not seeing this right now. As
senior U.S. officials say, right now the true winners
of this conflict are Iran and the tide is definitely
still heading in that direction and a soft partition
will just de facto legitimatize Iranian interests.
FOREMAN: Very quickly, Michael at the end here. Six
months from now, if the surge continues the way it
is, will we be better off or worse off overall in
Iraq?
WARE: Well, a lot can happen, of course, but even if
the surge continues on the path that it does, unless
the U.S. is prepared to really fundamentally confront
the underlying problems of this government, of this
political system, of the Shia militia structures and
Iranian influence, you can have better numbers on
paper in terms of attacks, but you're still not going
to control this situation.
FOREMAN: Very quickly Rajiv, same question to you,
better or worse in six months?
CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, I think that we could see
further improvements and security in Baghdad and in
the areas around it, but fundamentally the grand
political compromises that we'll need to see, I don't
think it will have meaningful traction. Yes, there
may be a few votes in the parliament. Yes, national
leaders may come together for a few photo ops, but
fundamentally, the grand power sharing bargains, the
trust that needs to be built between those
communities, I don't think is going to happen, Tom,
and so I think fundamentally we will be in some of
the same positions of stalemate that we are in today.
FOREMAN: And, Jamie, at the Pentagon six months from
now, a surge goes on?
McINTYRE: My prediction is that if things go the
same, they'll basically stay the same. The same
problem that we're facing now six months from now.
FOREMAN: OK. Thank you all very much for your
insights.