US General: Ramadi remains Iraq's most contentious city
Iraq-USA, Military, 6/2/2006

The Iraqi government cannot tolerate having parts of the city of Ramadi outside its control, a Defense Department spokesman says.

Army Brigadier General Carter Ham, deputy director for regional operations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a Pentagon briefing May 31 that Ramadi remains the most contentious city in Iraq. Ham described the situation there as a contest of wills, adding that the Iraqi government must figure out how to take control. The US military's role, he said, "is to help them do that."

Ham noted that plans are under way to increase the presence of Iraqi security forces in and around Ramadi. Even though the US military has a role in stabilizing the city, Ham said, the Iraqi government and its security forces have the larger responsibility for quelling the violence caused by insurgents, terrorists and foreign fighters.

Insecurity in Ramadi cannot be tolerated, Ham said. "The Iraqi government is not going to tolerate it," he said, and coalition forces will do their part to help them wrest back control.

When asked about allegations that US Marines killed unarmed Iraqi civilians in Hadithah in November 2005, Ham said two important investigations are under way to determine the facts.

"As the coalition forces operate inside Iraq," Ham explained, "we need the consent of the Iraqi government in order to operate.... Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are borne out by the facts, can have an [negative] effect on the ability of US forces to continue to operate." The charges are taken quite seriously, he added, and it is important to get the facts right.

Ham said US and Iraqi security forces depend heavily on the support of the Iraqi people. "Anything that tends to diminish that, obviously, is not helpful to what we're trying to do," he added.

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