As U.S. Shifts Policing Power, Baghdad Strife Rises

Posted on Aug 6, 2006

As U.S. forces have given Iraqi security officers responsibility for policing Baghdad, violence has notably increased, undercutting America’s premise that Iraqis are capable of securing their own country.

Thus over 7,000 U.S. personnel are being reassigned to Baghdad, where they will be policing what even U.S. commanders are warning could soon become a full-out civil war.

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N.Y. Times:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5—Over the past year, as American commanders pushed Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for this violent capital, Baghdad became a markedly more dangerous place.

Now the Americans are being forced to call in more of their own troops to bring the city under control.

The failure of the Iraqis to halt the slide into chaos in Baghdad undercuts the central premise of the American project here: that Iraqi forces can be trained and equipped to secure their own country, allowing the Americans to go home.

A review of previously unreleased statistics on American and Iraqi patrols suggests that as Americans handed over responsibilities to the Iraqis, violence in Baghdad increased.

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