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Rumsfeld said iraqi forces are filling troop gap { November 3 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55016-2003Nov2.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55016-2003Nov2.html
Rumsfeld: No Need For More U.S. Troops
Iraqi Forces Are Filling Gap, He Says
By Glenn Kessler and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 3, 2003; Page A01
On the bloodiest day for the U.S. military in more than seven months, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisted yesterday that the Bush administration's plan to improve security in Iraq was on track, with no need for additional U.S. troops as Iraqis are quickly trained to fill any manpower gaps.
"In a long, hard war, we're going to have tragic days, as this is," Rumsfeld said on ABC's "This Week." "But they are necessary. They are part of a war that's difficult and complicated."
President Bush, visiting his ranch in Crawford, Tex., made no public appearances Sunday. A White House spokesman issued a statement of determination in response to the day's events -- the downing of an Army helicopter that left at least 16 dead, the killing of a U.S. soldier in a bomb attack in Baghdad and the deaths of two American civilian contractors in a roadside mine blast.
As a new Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 51 percent of Americans disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq, his Democratic rivals pressed their case that the administration has bungled postwar operations and has no strategy for ending U.S. involvement.
With yesterday's deaths, the total number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq has increased to 379 -- almost two-thirds of them since Bush, standing in front of a banner declaring "mission accomplished," announced an end to major combat operations on May 1.
Blunting new calls from Capitol Hill to dispatch more U.S. troops, Rumsfeld said that "over 100,000" Iraqi forces had been trained to provide security and that the number would double by next September. Rumsfeld's number of Iraqi forces is 15,000 higher than numbers provided by the U.S. occupation authority and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in the past week, and it represents a 40 percent increase from administration estimates a month ago.
The administration has stressed a rapid "Iraqification" of the security situation as attacks against U.S. targets have dramatically increased in recent weeks. But, paradoxically, the attacks appear to be increasing in sophistication and accuracy as the administration asserts that more of the security is being turned over to Iraqis.
The U.S. military has lost CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters before, including one shot down by machine gun fire in Afghanistan. But this may be the first time a Chinook -- or any other U.S. military aircraft -- has been taken out by a handheld surface-to-air missile.
Two influential senators said yesterday the answer may be an increase in U.S. forces. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that "in the short term, we may need more American forces in there while we're training these people up." He said the administration also needed to enlist European allies by giving them a greater say in the postwar enterprise. Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the committee chairman, echoed Biden's comments on the same program.
But Rumsfeld said that although the number of U.S. troops in Iraq has declined from 150,000 to 130,000, "the total number of the security forces in the country has been going up steadily" because the number of forces contributed by other countries has remained steady at 30,000 and the number of Iraqi forces has "gone from zero on May 1st up to over 100,000 today."
Rumsfeld said "it's the totality of those three that needs to go up, and it is going up steadily. And there has not been a need for additional U.S. forces."
The administration has not explained why its estimate of the number of Iraqi forces has risen so rapidly. On Oct. 9, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, told a news conference in Baghdad that 60,000 Iraqis were providing security to their country. On Thursday, about three weeks later, Rice told foreign reporters the overall number was "over 85,000 and growing." That same day, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told an audience at Georgetown University the figure was "some 80,000 to 90,000."
On Saturday, the day before Rumsfeld said there were more than 100,000, a senior official in the occupation authority provided a figure of nearly 85,000, which included 50,000 police, 20,000 in the facility protection service, 7,800 in the civil defense corps, 5,000 border guards and 1,400 in a new Iraqi army.
Democratic presidential candidates, while faulting the administration's strategy, generally offered restrained statements about the large loss of life. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), appearing on "Face the Nation," said it was clear "we cannot solve this problem alone" and urged Bush to meet with foreign leaders, "treat them with respect and . . . get the help that we should get from our friends."
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean called the crash "a terrible tragedy" and said the perpetrators "must be brought to justice," but he said nothing about administration policy. A Dean adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity and reflecting the private views of several other campaigns, said the candidates "can be critical tomorrow" but did not want to immediately politicize a tragedy. "By turning on the television, people can see that these attacks have become more sophisticated," the adviser said. "They don't need Howard Dean to tell them that."
Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) was more critical, issuing a statement reflecting his view that the larger problem in Iraq is anti-Americanism and that the occupation will be a failure as long as it has such an overwhelmingly American face. Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander, said he and his wife, Gert, "hope that all our troops will be out of harm's way as soon as possible."
Aides said Bush had no plans to appear in public before he leaves the ranch for seven hours today to travel to Birmingham to raise money for his reelection campaign and speak about the economy. The White House issued a statement, in the name of a spokesman, invoking the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and pledging that the United States "will prevail in this critical front in the war on terror, because the stakes are too high to do anything less." The statement did not mention the Chinook crash, but included a general statement of gratitude to "the brave men and women in the military and elsewhere" who make sacrifices to make the world safer.
Just three weeks ago, White House officials had mounted a public relations offensive in which Bush and his senior aides accused news organizations of underplaying progress in Iraq, with Bush denigrating "the filter" of national networks and newspapers. But nearly every day since then, a new attack in Iraq has made that strategy harder to pursue. During a southern swing on Saturday, Bush largely ignored the death toll in Iraq, referring specifically to Iraq only once in four speeches totaling 72 minutes.
Bush made an adjustment to his stump speech on Saturday that appeared to reflect concern about the mounting casualties and falling troop morale. He was addressing Republican rallies ahead of Tuesday's gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Mississippi, and three of the four speeches included a message urging families to convey Bush's thanks to relatives in the military. In London, Ky., he said, "When I came into office, morale in the U.S. military was beginning to suffer, so we increased the defense budget."
Allen reported from Crawford. Staff writer Walter Pincus in Washington and correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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