On troop movement into Iraq's Sadr city
Iraq-USA, Politics, 3/6/2007

White House spokesman Tony Snow was asked yesterday about some sort of conflicting pictures coming out of Iraq this morning. "On one hand, you have this implementation in Sadr City, more troops and the security plan. On the other hand, there's a story about the intelligence agency in Basra. First of all, what's the, sort of, assessment of how things are going with the implementation?"

Snow said "We're still trying to figure out what the facts are. We don't have a full readout on that. If you take a look at what's been going on, the President -- the Prime Minister, I mean, gave a speech over the weekend on reconciliation, which, in fact, hit on all the themes that Democrats, Republicans, and the President have said are important. And he talked about such things as the rule of law and making sure that the law is enforced fairly across the country; reconciliation, he spoke of the oil law; he spoke of going after corruption. So all of those things certainly said the right things."

Snow said "If you take a look at what's been going on, on the ground in Baghdad and elsewhere, there are encouraging signs. But I want to remind people that we're at the very beginning stages of the new way forward. There's one US brigade in, out of five. The Iraqis have placed three brigades into Baghdad now. The Prime Minister has recently signed off on the orders for Baghdad security. We have seen operations in Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods. We have seen some small, but encouraging signs. But, again, one doesn't want to read too much into it."

He added "I think it's important to give everything a chance to work. General Petraeus has been on the ground for about three weeks.So I think for people to start drawing snap conclusions, let's see how things continue to work. But you may recall, we were talking not so long ago about a series of things that would qualify as benchmarks, such as having three brigades in by the end of February -- it happened.As far as pushing for the oil law, it's now been passed by the Council of Ministers, it goes to the legislature, the Council of Representatives. If you take a look at the way the Iraqis also have reached out within the region, that is a key recommendation of Baker-Hamilton, and something a lot of Democrats and this administration have talked about. We're going to have a meeting in Baghdad on the 10th of March, followed by a ministerial level meeting the following month, in April, that will include Secretary Rice and others."

He added "So, again, a lot of encouraging signs. As you know, I'm hesitant to give out report cards on the Prime Minister, but we have seen many encouraging signs in recent days. But we also acknowledge that we're still at the very beginning of this plan."

Asked "Is it discouraging, his initial comments about the Basra incident seem to focus on the invasion into the office, as opposed to the apparent torture victims found there?"

Snow said "what you're trying to do is to get me to comment. I'm aware of the news reports, just as you are. What we're still trying to do is to unravel everything, and I feel a little uncomfortable about trying to do it simply on the basis of wire stories."

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