Report: Odierno says Iraqis cannot provide Baghdad security on their own until late 2008

Above: A soldier with the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment pulls security as an explosive ordnance disposal team detonates a roadside bomb in Baghdad in September.

The No. 2 American commander in Iraq said Tuesday that Iraqi security forces would need most of next year before they were capable of providing security for the entire capital, Baghdad.

The commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, emphasized that the increase in American troops over recent months had shown substantial results, putting “extreme pressure” on foreign terrorists operating in Iraq.

In comments at the National Press Club here, General Odierno, who is in charge of day-to-day combat operations in Iraq, acknowledged that “it is going to take more time to make the Iraqi security forces self-reliant, and some challenges remain.”...

He said that Iraqi forces still could not provide their own logistics and lacked qualified commanders, and that “there is still some sectarianism” in the Iraqi military’s ranks, although he expressed confidence that the government in Baghdad was working to quell disloyalty.

Read the rest at the NY Times

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