Over the past several months, I have received reports of serious physical abuse of detainees by ISF (Iraqi Security Forces). |
reducing the visibility and ultimately the presence of coalition forces as we transition to Iraqi security self-reliance remains a key element of our counter-insurgency strategy. |
That is fair, it could happen. |
The development of the Iraqi security forces is very much on track, |
The Iraqis are seeing that they need to take a stand against the foreign fighters and the Iraqis that support them so they can get on with their future, |
The level of attacks they've been able to generate has not increased substantially here over what we've seen in the last year, ... This insurgency is not progressing. |
The next 75 days are going to be critical for what happens, |
The people of Iraq think of themselves as Iraqis, and people are not interested necessarily in seeing the fragmentation of the country. And I don't see that happening. |
the possibility for condition-based reductions of coalition forces still exists for 2006. |
The referendum on the constitution and the elections at the end of December are the most important aspects of what we're doing now. |
There are people in Iraq out to stop progress, and as you saw here today, they can't, |
There is still lots of tough work to do and we should expect the insurgency not to just go away because there were elections. |
They were involved in about a monthlong planning cycle with us. And they were well-integrated with us. ... I've heard nothing but positive things about how they performed, |
Things change in a battalion. We're making assessments on leadership, on training. There are a lot of variables that are involved here, senator, |
This constitutional referendum and whether it is supported by the Sunnis to a large degree, I think, is something that we just have to watch to see how that comes out. So until we're done with this political process here, with the referendum and the elections in December, I think it's too soon to tell. |