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Like Bush, general says troop cut is possible

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Times Staff Writer

The No. 2 U.S. military commander in Iraq warned Tuesday that security gains from this year’s American troop buildup were just beginning to be felt and could be derailed if forces began leaving too soon.

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno added, however, that if attacks on American and Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians did not increase dramatically for the next three or four months, it might be possible to maintain security in Iraq “with less [U.S.] troops.”

Odierno’s assessment of the results of President Bush’s military buildup strategy painted a picture of a plan stymied by Iraq’s political problems but showing hope six months after its launch. It was neither extremely optimistic nor grim, and it offered vague echoes of remarks delivered by Bush a day earlier during an unannounced visit to Iraq.

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In an address to cheering troops in the western province of Anbar, Bush said Monday that U.S. military and political leaders had told him that “if the kind of success we are now seeing continues it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces.”

The president’s visit was limited to Anbar, where violence has dropped dramatically since many Sunni Muslim tribal leaders who once harbored insurgents began cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

Odierno said attacks on military forces and Iraqi civilians had fallen to their lowest level in 15 months nationwide, but he did not provide numbers. He acknowledged that sectarian killings continued in some Baghdad neighborhoods and that militants still had the power to put a truck bomb in a large populated area or try to retake territory now controlled by U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The next month and a half, which includes the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, should help make clear whether troop reductions make sense, Odierno said. He said that in past years, there had been an increase in bombings and other violence in the days before Ramadan but this was not the case so far this year.

Later, the U.S. military reported that 23 car bombs had gone off in Baghdad in the last three months compared with 42 during the same period last year.

“That would be a big indicator to me, if we can hold it through Ramadan,” Odierno said of the attack numbers.

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At the same time, Odierno said the only way to ensure that whatever security gains had been made would continue was if the Iraqi government instituted political reforms that quell sectarian tensions.

“You can’t fix it through military action,” he said. “You’re going to have to have government policy that is going to take political action in order to really solve this problem, and I think that comes later on.”

Odierno’s comments underscored the problems facing the U.S. military buildup, which has brought an additional 28,500 troops to Iraq since February. The idea was that the additional forces would stabilize Iraq so that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s government could focus on political reconciliation. Iraq’s government has made little progress in that direction, leading war critics to demand a drawdown of American forces.

Tuesday was a quiet day by Iraqi standards, but police nonetheless found a dozen bodies of men believed to be victims of sectarian killings in Baghdad. In the northern city of Mosul, a television journalist was shot to death, an association representing Iraqi journalists announced. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 90 Iraqi journalists have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Colleagues said that Aamr Malalla Rashidi, who worked for a satellite TV channel, had received death threats on his cellular phone two months ago. He was killed Monday evening by gunmen in two cars.

On Tuesday, an appellate court upheld the death sentences of three members of the late Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime, including Ali Hassan Majid, dubbed “Chemical Ali” for his role in the gassing of tens of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988. Majid, a cousin of Hussein, and two others were convicted in June of genocide and sentenced to hang. The sentences were automatically appealed.

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Their crimes stemmed from Hussein’s so-called Anfal campaign, a military offensive that targeted Kurds whom Hussein accused of cooperating with Iranian rebels during the Iran-Iraq war. The defendants all were military or political leaders under Hussein. During the trial, which lasted nine months, they denied targeting civilians and said they were acting only to protect Iraq from hostile forces.

Under Iraqi law, the executions must now be carried out within 30 days. Hussein also was charged in the case but was hanged in December 2006 after being convicted on separate charges.

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tina.susman@latimes.com

Special correspondents in Mosul and Baghdad contributed to this report.

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