Pentagon sees end of combat
April 14, 2003
By ERIC SCHMITT And BERNARD WEINRAUB The New York Times
Military officials said Monday that the 4th Infantry Division, which has the Army�s most advanced Abrams tanks, with digital tracking and communications systems, will be assigned control over northern Iraq. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment will be assigned to protect the western flanks, a mission suited to a force that includes tanks, attack helicopters and reconnaissance helicopters.
Marines in the next few days will relieve a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division in southern Iraq, allowing the rapid-response force to head home and rest up for the next crisis. Over the next several weeks, the 1st Armored Division is expected to relieve the 3rd Infantry Division in and around Baghdad. The Army�s V Corps headquarters is likely to move to Tikrit from Kuwait, military officials said.
Pentagon officials warned that assignments could change as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the allied commander in the gulf, tinkered with the mix of forces.
The size and makeup of the postwar stabilization forces ultimately will depend on the threat on the ground and contributions from allied nations, military officials said. The Netherlands, for instance, said Monday it was considering sending 600 Dutch marines to a postwar stabilization force.
U.S. forces were already being tailored for the new mission. The 1st Armored Division will leave its artillery at home. The 1st Cavalry Division is now unlikely to go to Iraq, except for about 700 military police, civil affairs soldiers and other specialists who can help in rebuilding the country. Some 1,800 civil affairs specialists are in Iraq now.
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Senior military officers on Monday defended their handling of security in Baghdad as troops moved into the city last week. They said that some looting was a natural result of the citizenry�s pent-up anger toward Saddam�s government, and that commanders did not have enough forces to put troops everywhere while combat operations continued.
�Over next week, the situation will dramatically improve,� a senior officer said, noting that the initial fighting in Baghdad made conditions too dangerous even for military police.
A senior Pentagon official said Monday, however, that the military was �surprised� that looters ransacked most of Baghdad�s hospitals. And Powell promised to help rebuild the city�s National Museum and recover Mesopotamian treasures that were stolen.
�The United States understands its obligations and will be taking a leading role with respect to antiquities in general, but this museum in particular,� Powell said after meeting with the Kuwaiti foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Sabah.
Islamic clerics have helped to maintain order in cities like Najaf and Karbala. But it has been more difficult elsewhere, where U.S. and British forces were now conducting joint patrols with Iraqi police officers who have returned to their jobs. McChrystal said the coalition was still in the �organizational phase� of identifying and vetting a credible civilian police force in Baghdad. �This will be a long process,� he said.
The State Department has begun recruiting American policemen for Iraq and could eventually field a force of as many as 1,000 police officers, according to a State Department spokesman.
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Franks already has turned to fighters assembled by Ahmad Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress, for missions to pacify the southern Iraqi town of Shatra.
About 300 of the �Free Iraqi Fighters� operating under the command of American Special Operations forces swept Shatra in recent days, uncovering a large cache of French-made anti-tank missiles and rounding up a number of Fedayeen fighters identified by locals, a senior Defense Department official said Monday.
�General Franks wanted Iraqis who can speak Iraqi Arabic on that mission,� the Defense Department official said. �All they had to do was identify themselves � when they opened their mouths, people came forward to help identify� the paramilitaries.
The 300 Iraqis were part of a 700-strong force that deployed near Nasiriyah just more than a week ago. They have been armed with captured weapons and U.S. military equipment, the official said.
The Pentagon official said that Franks was considering deploying the Free Iraqi Fighter force to help maintain order in Karbala, Najaf and perhaps Kut.
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