http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070531/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraqBy PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer 51 minutes ago
U.S. military commanders are talking with Iraqi militants about cease-fires and other arrangements to try to stop the violence, the No. 2 American commander said Thursday.
And he suggested he might not be able to strictly meet the September deadline for telling Congress whether President Bush's military build up in Iraq is working.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said commanders at all levels are being empowered to reach out for talks with militants, tribes, religious leaders and others in the country that has been gripped by violence on a range of fronts including insurgents, sectarian rivals and common criminals.
"It's just beginning, so we have a lot of work to do in this," he said. "But we have restructured ourselves ... to work this issue."
He said he thinks 80 percent of Iraqis — including Sunni insurgents and Shia militants — can reach reconciliation with each other, though most al-Qaida operatives won't.
"We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces.," Odierno told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from Baghdad.
On the assessment of operations that is due in September, he said he thinks it will take longer to tell whether the increase of nearly 30,000 troops will work as intended — that is, to quell violence enough to give Iraqi officials breathing space to work on reconciliation and development issues.
"The way I understand it, is we're going to be required to provide an assessment in September. So I will provide my assessment," Odierno said, adding it might not be complete.
He said he will be able to assess the work of forces that arrived for the beginning of the build up in February, but that the ones just arrived this week won't be in place for a couple of weeks — meaning it will be August before he might be able to tell how they're doing.
"So that'll be the first time I'll be able to make a real initial assessment of the true affect of the surge," he said. "The assessment might be 'I need a little more time. ' The assessment might be, 'I've seen enough, and it's effective or I've seen enough, and it's not going to be effective.'
"Right now if you asked me, I would tell you I'll probably need a little bit more time to do a true assessment," he said.
"If I think I might need a little bit more time, I will give an assessment saying, 'But I'd like to have more time'," Odierno said.
He said the increased effort by commanders to reach out to militants goes hand in hand with reconciliation efforts by the Iraqi government.
Odierno noted that efforts to engage tribal leaders in Anbar province — who have been turning against al-Qaida there — has helped draw people to serve in the Iraqi security forces in record numbers and has helped reduce attacks there.
For example, the attacks in Anbar in May 2006 totaled 811, while this May they were just barely over 400, Odierno said. Since the beginning of 2007, over 12,000 Iraqi citizens have volunteered for Iraqi security forces in Anbar. In all of 2006, only 1,000 had volunteered.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other leaders are under increasing pressure from Washington to do more to achieve reconciliation among factions because, officials argue, no amount of military force can bring peace to the country without political peace.
Al-Maliki announced a national reconciliation proposal nearly a year ago that has made limited progress. It offered some amnesty to members of the Sunni-led insurgency and a change in a law that had removed senior members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from their jobs.
"I believe there are elements that are irreconcilable, but I believe the large majority are," Odierno said. "I believe about 80 percent are reconcilable, both Jaish al-Mahdi as well as Sunni insurgents," though very few of al-Qaida.
"There will be always people that are irreconcilable and ... the Iraqi government, with our support, will have to continue to conduct operations against those forces," he said.
"Prime Minister Maliki and the government of Iraq have to continue to reach out to all these groups ... bringing these groups into the political process so we can deal with their differences in a peaceful way instead of in violent ways,:" Odierno said.
