WASHINGTON (AFP) — The top US commander in Iraq, Army General David Petraeus, offered a mixed assessment of security in Iraq in a letter to troops just days head of key hearings on Capitol Hill.
The letter, released Friday, said that US-led coalition forces had "seized the initiative from our enemies in a number of areas," even though there had been "uneven" progress.
Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before committees in the US House of Representatives and Senate on Monday and Tuesday on the effectiveness of an eight-month-old, 30,000-man "surge" of US troops in Iraq.
The presentations are part of President George W. Bush's effort to help convince Congress to continue funding the war.
"My sense is that we have achieved tactical momentum and wrested the initiative from our enemies in a number of areas of Iraq," Petraeus said in the letter, dated September 7.
"The result has been progress in the security arena, although it has, as you know, been uneven."
Progress "has not, to be sure, been uniform across Baghdad or across Iraq," he said, mentioning recent huge bombings in Baghdad.
"However, the overall trajectory has been encouraging, especially when compared to the situation at the height of the sectarian violence in late 2006 and early 2007."
Petraeus was less positive about advances made on the Iraqi political scene.
"One of the justifications for the surge, after all, was that it would help create the space for Iraqi leaders to tackle the tough questions and agree on key pieces of 'national reconciliation' legislation.
"It has not worked out as we had hoped," he said.
In his letter Petraeus did not discuss pulling out any troops from Iraq, but in comments to the Boston Globe published Friday, he said he will recommend a gradual reduction of US forces beginning next spring in his testimony to Congress next week.
"Based on the progress our forces are achieving, I expect to be able to recommend that some of our forces will be redeployed without replacement," Petraeus told the Globe in an email from Baghdad.
The possible force reduction will come as the five brigades deployed to Iraq as part of the "surge" strategy end their tours of duty and are not replaced, the daily said. A brigade consists of 3,500 to 4,500 soldiers.
The US military said on Friday that insurgents killed seven American troops in separate attacks in Iraq.
The latest deaths brought the military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,749, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
Petraeus and Crocker are likely to face tough critics in Congress: The number two Democratic leader in the senate, Dick Durbin, said Friday that he will oppose more supplemental war funding bills unless the White House also includes a withdrawal strategy.
"I used to think this war was our worst foreign policy mistake in a generation," Durbin said in a speech Friday. "Now I think it is our worst foreign policy mistake ever. This Congress can't give President Bush another blank check for his war in Iraq."
Durbin warned that "the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working. (But) even if the figures were right, the conclusion is wrong."
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