Iraqi security can help quell attacks, U.S. says

[Nottingham]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2196778

Iraqi security can help quell attacks, U.S. says
Bremer says force to double within year
By JOEL BRINKLEY
New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- After one of the worst weeks of violence here in months, Paul Bremer, the special representative for Iraq, said the American strategy for quelling the attacks was to "encourage Iraqis to play a central role" in securing the nation.

Speaking at a news conference Saturday evening, Bremer said the United States and Britain would double the size of Iraqi defense forces in the next year, bringing the number to 200,000 by September.

He spoke on a day when residents of Baghdad kept their children home from school, as the U.S. military kept most of their soldiers in their barracks and as shopkeepers complained they had no business. On what is usually a normal business day here, almost every sector of life in the city was off kilter because of anonymous warnings that hospitals, schools and other unspecified sites would be the targets of bombings.

The U.S. military said a roadside bombing in Mosul on Saturday had killed two U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division and wounded two others, the Associated Press reported. And witnesses said an oil pipeline was on fire about 10 miles north of Saddam
more....

:bounce: 200,000 Iraqi's armed is kinda frightening
Does Bremer Know what he is doing?????????????????????????

[patdem]

1. I thought the current force was about 40,000...how does double

that equal 200,000? Enquiring minds want to know??? :shrug:

[MidwestTransplant]

2. 40,000 is the police force

200,000 will be the size of the Army. Wait until April/May when they start pulling troops out saying we won.

[wtmusic]

3. There is no stopping the irreversible slide into anarchy

Any countermeasures will only fan the flames.

If you think it's bad now...

[Barrett808]

4. Yes, but when the drawdown happens in Feb. and the insurgency...

...really starts asserting itself, the BFEE will say "the fate of Iraq is in the hands of Iraqis".