Iraqi general to take control of Baghdad security

The general who will lead Iraqi forces in a security crackdown in Baghdad takes charge tomorrow.

The much-vaunted joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed in the capital will start “very soon thereafter”, a senior US military adviser said.

The US military confirmed tonight that Lieutenant General Abboud Gambar would lead the operation. He was named to the top position under pressure from the US military, which blackballed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s first choice, Lieutenant General Mohan al-Freiji.

Gambar, a Shiite in his early 60s, was held briefly as a US prisoner after his capture in the 1991 Gulf War.

He and his unit were decorated by Saddam Hussein after the war for their brave defence of Kuwait’s Fialaka Island at the opening of the conflict that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait after a year’s occupation.

“Officially, the Baghdad Operational Command takes over tomorrow so the expectation is that the plan will be implemented soon thereafter, very soon thereafter,” said Colonel Douglass Heckman, the senior adviser to the 9th Iraqi Army Division, which operates on the east side of the Tigris River.

Two Iraqi newspapers have reported that the operation would begin tomorrow.

Heckman and other US military officials declined to provide more details about the start of the operation and said it would build strength gradually.

“It’ll be a steadily increasing amount of pressure brought to bear on the insurgents and the militias and the criminals,” Colonel Chip Lewis, the transition team chief, told reporters at Camp Victory near Baghdad International Airport.

Heckman said thousands of US and Iraqi reinforcements already were in place for the neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood sweep.

He declined to give precise numbers, although US President George Bush has ordered 21,500 additional troops to Iraq by the end of May.

About 8,000 other American forces are expected to transfer into the city or nearby regions, joining about 15,000 US troops already in the capital and its suburbs.

Heckman said he expected to see “concrete results” by the end of the summer, echoing a timeline set by General George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, who will soon depart and turn over leadership to Lieutenant General David Petraeus.

He will become a four-star general when he takes up command.

“The end of the summer is where we should be able to see…the fruits of our labour and this stability that we’re talking about,” he said.

“Some areas sooner, some areas later maybe, but the end of the summer is when we should see some concrete results and be able to say: ’Is this working or not?’ so to speak.”

American and Iraqi commanders are pulling together a force that numbers about 90,000 troops on paper for what many see as a last-chance drive to curb the sectarian violence that has turned the capital of six million people into a battlefield.

Iraqis insist they will take the lead in the operation, but the US officers acknowledged that US forces would retain oversight, at least in the beginning.

Gambar will have two deputies, a Shiite and a Sunni, one on each side of the Tigris River, which curls through the centre of Baghdad. The remaining Sunni Muslim population in the capital lives mainly on the west bank, while Shiites dominate the east.

The command structure reflects the distrust many Iraqis feel toward their security forces, with the Shiite-dominated police widely accused of being infiltrated by militias like the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and has been blamed for much of the sectarian killing.

The security operation is the third attempt at pacifying the capital since Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took power in May, but the officers said they were optimistic this mission would succeed because of the overwhelming force.

“Thousands more American soldiers and thousands more Iraqi soldiers…are already on the ground and that is different than last time and now we’ll continue this surge,” Heckman said. “We’ve got to secure the place to allow the government to have a chance to stand up.”

“Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. It’s gonna be much more than this city has ever seen and it’s gonna be a rolling surge,” Heckman said.

Heckman, whose area of operation includes the Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City, said the sprawling Shiite slum was not immune to the military efforts, although he acknowledged it was a politically sensitive area and said there were talks in progress with various factions in the district.

Al-Maliki, the Shiite prime minister, owes his job to al-Sadr and his hesitance to confront militia has been blamed in part for the failure of the past two security operations.

“On some level we’re letting them know that we’re prepared to do anything,” he said. “For a long time (Sadr City) was hands-off. It’s not hands-off anymore.”