Powell says he expects Iraq security situation to improve
Iraq-USA, Politics, 9/18/2004

US Secretary of State Colin Powell says U.S. and Iraqi officials do not expect the security situation in the Sunni Triangle to continue in its present state of insurgency.

Powell told a Washington Times editorial panel September 16 that those most concerned about Iraq's insurgency do not believe current conditions will persist through December or during the January elections. U.S. and Iraqi officials know "that these areas have to be brought back... firmly under government control," he said, and military, political and diplomatic leaders in both countries are working towards that goal.

Powell was responding to a question about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's remarks on BBC television earlier on September 16 concerning the prospects for fair elections in Iraq. "[I]f you read carefully what the secretary general said," Powell replied, "he said that he would find it difficult under this current set of security conditions to have, I think what he called, 'a credible election.'"

Powell said the security situation "might have been further along" now except for the several weeks of confrontations with Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia in Najaf and Kufa. The resulting agreement to get the militia out of the holy Shiite shrine and turn it over to Imam Ali al-Sistani "wouldn't have happened if we hadn't essentially crushed the militia into a nice, tight circle." If not for Sistani's arrival, Powell said, Iraqis security forces "were ready to go in" and provide a military solution.

According to Powell, a similar tactic is being used in Samara and other places: "circle, pressure, convince people it is no longer in their interest to harbor insurgents." However, he said, these actions are not destroying the insurgents, but rather "squeezing them and moving them somewhere else. And so you've just got to keep doing it until they have nowhere else to go."

Previous Stories:
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  State's Armitage says Iraqi judges vital to Iraq's democracy   (9/16/2004)
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