Attacks in Baghdad Down Since Saddam Captured, General Says

 

Wednesday  December 31, 2003

Defense Department Report, December 31: Iraq operations

Attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in the Baghdad area have "absolutely gone down" since the capture of Saddam Hussein, according to U.S. Army Brigadier General Martin Dempsey.

The commander of the U.S. 1st Armored Division, Dempsey briefed reporters in Baghdad and (via videoconference) at the Pentagon December 31. The unit's area of responsibility is Baghdad and surrounding areas.

Asked whether attacks in his area have gone up or down since Saddam Hussein's capture, Dempsey said, "Absolutely gone down. I'm reluctant to put a percentage on it because ... we tend to do analysis on a monthly ... basis. ... But clearly, the attacks on us have gone down [and] the intelligence being provided for us by local Iraqis has gone up."

Dempsey also said that useful information concerning coalition enemies in Baghdad had been gleaned with Saddam's capture. Asked whether he could be more specific, Dempsey said coalition forces had known there were eight to 10 enemy cells in Baghdad, but now they know the number of cells is 14.

"Now you might say, ‘Gee, how do you know there [are] exactly 14?' Well, you know, you have to form your own conclusions about that. ... I know who they are and I know where they are, and I know if I can find them that they no longer will be doing what they were doing before," Dempsey said.

At the beginning of the briefing, Dempsey gave an analysis of the Christmas Day attacks in Baghdad:

"Intelligence told us that the enemy wanted to muster several hundred attackers across the city and attack targets simultaneously. We assessed that he mustered and attacked us with approximately 20 personnel in 18 attacks." Nine of the 18 were hit-and-run attacks using rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), Dempsey said, carried out by no more than six to eight individuals organized in three or four teams.

"So that's the magnitude of the attacks against us on Christmas, though many of you [reporters] who were in Baghdad at the time and felt the effect or heard the effect of the nine separate RPG attacks could very well have considered it to be a much larger enemy force," Dempsey said.

Asked when and where in Baghdad he foresaw being able to hand over security duties to Iraqis, Dempsey said there are "88 neighborhoods in the city, and we think there [are] only three or four of them that we couldn't be comfortable transitioning to local control right now. Now, we haven't done that ... because we're still in the period that I would describe as the ‘coaching, teaching and mentoring' aspect of giving the new Iraqi security apparatus some help --- training, essentially --- to take over that responsibility."

 

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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