Lynch: Withdrawal of surge forces will escalate violence; 'It would be a mess'

Soldiers take cover while one prepares to fire an AT4 rocket launcher at an insurgent position during a firefight in Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighborhood in June.

Political pressure for an early withdrawal of US troops from Iraq would trigger a "mess" just as they are taking the fight to insurgents, a top US commander said Friday.

Major General Rick Lynch, commander of coalition forces in central Iraq, said the addition of thousands more "surge" troops in recent weeks had enabled him to clear 70 percent of his territory south of Baghdad of insurgents.

"Those surge forces have given us the capability that we have now to take the fight to the enemy," he told Pentagon reporters via satellite from Camp Victory in Baghdad.

"If those surge forces go away, that capability goes away and the Iraqi security forces aren't ready yet to do that," Lynch said.

In the troops' absence, insurgents would regain ground and carry out more attacks in Baghdad with roadside bombs, "and the violence would escalate."

"It would be a mess," the commander said, days before a new debate over withdrawing troops is to start in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

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