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New general ready to face foes in Iraq

By Marian Wilkinson
Paul McGeough

June 26, 2004

George Casey

The violent insurgency in Iraq is far stronger and more sophisticated than the US expected and the success of the new caretaker government could be decided within months, according to the American general taking over command on June 30.

General George Casey, who will lead a UN-endorsed multinational force made up of US, Iraqi, British and other coalition forces, also said he believed there was only "a relatively small percentage of foreign extremists" in Iraq and the majority of the fighters were loyalists from Saddam Hussein's former regime.

Appearing before US senators to confirm his nomination as the first commander of the Multinational Force-Iraq, General Casey conceded "the insurgency is much stronger than I certainly would have anticipated".

His comments came after one of the worst days of violence in Iraq since the invasion. Despite the apparent co-ordination and sophistication of Thursday's strikes and a series of heavy explosions around Baghdad yesterday morning, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared: "These are isolated incidents. We are going to face them and we are going to defeat them and we are going to crush them."

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US and Iraqi forces yesterday regained control in heavy fighting after insurgents set off car bombs and seized police stations in an offensive across six cities that killed more than 100 people, most of them Iraqi civilians, and left at least 320 people wounded, including 12 Americans.

A group led by the al-Qaeda-linked operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which has claimed responsibility for the beheading of two foreigners in recent weeks, said it was behind the assaults. With the security crisis in Iraq worsening just days before the transfer of power from the US-led occupation powers to the Iraqi interim government, a new poll finds the majority of Americans for the first time saying the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.

The Gallup poll found that 54 per cent of those polled believed sending troops to Iraq was a mistake (a jump of 13 per cent compared with the last poll earlier this month) and 55 per cent felt the war had not made America any safer fromterrorism.

US military deaths in Iraq have climbed to more than 850 since the war began and more than 5000 have been wounded. An estimated 11,000 Iraqis have died and up to 40,000 have been injured.

The Bush Administration has blamed the high-profile Jordanian terrorist Zarqawi for much of the recent violence in Iraq. This week he issued a death threat to Mr Allawi.

But both General Casey and US Secretary of State Colin Powell steered away from crediting Zarqawi with running the insurgency.

Asked what percentage of the insurgents were international terrorists, General Casey replied: "The majority are former regime loyalists."

Listing his key priorities in Iraq as supporting a viable Iraqi army and providing security for the UN to plan for free elections, General Casey also warned that "we're going to have to fight to get the elections". He denied the US military had asked for 15,000 new troops to join the 140,000 US forces in Iraq but he did say commanders were doing "contingency planning" to send more troops if security deteriorated further.

General Casey said he hoped countries from NATO and elsewhere would provide a security brigade to protect the UN election operation.

General Casey is taking over from General Ricardo Sanchez, whose command was rocked by the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

- with AP