Patience Please - Perfection Takes Time

Rice: Iraq War 'Worth the Sacrifice' - washingtonpost.com
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this morning asked Americans "to be patient" as the war in Iraq entered its fifth year, acknowledging early missteps in the conflict but saying "it is worth the sacrifice" to have toppled former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

With a new security plan underway and more American troops deployed to help dampen sectarian violence, "we will start to know relatively soon whether the Iraqis are living up to their obligations," to take more responsibility for security, Rice said in a morning interview on NBC.

Bush to Ask for Patience in Iraq War
President Bush marked the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq on Monday as the White House tried to counter Democratic attempts to force a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Bush was expected to issue a plea for more patience in the war, which has stretched longer with higher costs than the White House ever anticipated. The president was to make a statement in the Roosevelt Room.

"It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that our best option is to pack up and go home," Bush was to say, according to an administration official who saw an advance text of his remarks. "While that may be satisfying in the short run, the consequences for American security would be devastating."

Rice: Iraq War 'Worth the Sacrifice'
Secretary Asks for Patience as Deadly Bombings Rock Baghdad and Kirkuk

By Karin Brulliard and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 19, 2007; 9:52 AM

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this morning asked Americans "to be patient" as the war in Iraq entered its fifth year, acknowledging early missteps in the conflict but saying "it is worth the sacrifice" to have toppled former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

With a new security plan underway and more American troops deployed to help dampen sectarian violence, "we will start to know relatively soon whether the Iraqis are living up to their obligations," to take more responsibility for security, Rice said in a morning interview on NBC.

As she and other administration officials conducted television interviews on the four-year anniversary of the "shock and awe" invasion of the country, Rice said, "I would ask the American people to be patient...We have invested a lot. It is worth the sacrifice."

More than 3,200 American military personnel have died in the conflict. Bush is scheduled to make remarks about the war at 11:30, following a video-conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

In a separate interview with CBS, Rice said it was probably a mistake not to have put in place a "more localized, more decentralized" plan to rebuild the country, and that the U.S. from earlier on should have put in place the more forceful counterinsurgency strategy now being pursued under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, wire services reported.

As Rice spoke, wire services in Baghdad reported a wave of fresh bombings, including an explosion at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad and four blasts in rapid succession in the oil-rich region of Kirkuk.

The mosque bombing during a prayer service killed at least eight worshipers, wire services reported. In Kirkuk, four car bombs went off within around half an hour of each other, killing about a dozen people, according to an Associated Press report.

A day before in Baghdad, insurgents disguised as mechanics slipped into car repair shops on the ground floor of a hotel used as an Iraqi army post in Anbar province, a hub of the Sunni insurgency, then furtively planted bombs before fleeing and blowing up the building on Sunday, police said.

Iraqi army and police forces also discovered the beheaded bodies of nine police officers in an abandoned post office east of Anbar's provincial capital, Ramadi, police Col. Tareq Aduleimi said. The bodies, found as the forces raided suspected hideouts of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, showed signs of torture, he said.

The violence in the volatile Sunni-dominated province came on a day that the Iraqi military reported the details of a raid this month on a Sunni legislator's home, where officials said soldiers seized 65 Kalashnikov rifles and found traces of explosives on four cars.

Seven people were arrested in the March 8 raid at the home of Dhafir al-Ani, a lawmaker with the largest Sunni bloc in the Shiite-led parliament, Iraqi military spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi said at a news conference. One man, who had a sniper rifle, remains in custody, he said.

Reached by telephone, Ani called the raid "a humiliation attempt" but declined to place blame for it.

He said all his weapons were registered with the government and denied that his cars contained explosives. The vehicles frequently entered the fortified Green Zone, he said, where they were sniffed by police dogs. He said that those detained were his guards and that they had been tortured by the military.

While a security crackdown in Baghdad has brought relative calm to the capital, bloodshed has risen in surrounding provinces, including Anbar, where insurgents are clashing with U.S.-backed Sunni tribal chiefs for control. Hundreds of American troops have been killed in the province since the U.S.-led invasion four years ago.

The blasts on Sunday demolished Fallujah's al-Salam Hotel -- which means "peace hotel" in Arabic -- and killed or wounded at least 20 people, said Khaled al-Eulaimy, a lieutenant with the Fallujah police.

The U.S. military confirmed that a building in Fallujah was bombed but did not provide details.

In a statement posted on its Web site, the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group, asserted responsibility for the bombing and said 25 Iraqi soldiers had been killed.

"Brave soldiers of the Islamic State of Iraq booby-trapped the building and the building was fully destroyed," the statement said. "With the help of God, all who were in it died."

At 7:20 a.m. Sunday, Eulaimy said, "a number" of insurgents wearing grease-stained clothing and toting tools entered the car repair shops on the ground floor of the three-story hotel. They used remote controls to detonate the hidden bombs, he said.

Sabah al-Ani, a doctor who lives near the hotel, said he was awakened by what sounded like a "very, very big explosion." By the time he arrived at the hotel a few minutes later, ambulances and military vehicles had surrounded what appeared to be a pile of rubble, he said.

On Friday, hundreds of people were sickened and as many as eight people were killed when three suicide bombers detonated trucks carrying chlorine and explosives near Fallujah and Ramadi. A U.S. military spokesman said al-Qaeda in Iraq probably was behind the attack.

A U.S. Marine was killed in combat in the province on Saturday, the military reported Sunday.

The U.S. military also reported the deaths of two soldiers on Saturday. One was killed in Diyala province in an explosion that wounded five other soldiers. Another died in a noncombat incident; the death is under investigation, the military said.

Also Sunday, a car bomb exploded in Baghdad at a market in the Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, killing at least 12 people and injuring 16, said Abdullah Salman, an officer with the Interior Ministry.

Police found the bodies of 18 people, with gunshot wounds and their hands tied behind their backs, dumped across the capital between Saturday and Sunday afternoons, he said. All showed signs of torture.

Other bombings and shootings Sunday in Baghdad killed at least eight people, police said.

Brulliard reported from Iraq. Special correspondents Salih Dehema and Waleed Saffar in Baghdad and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.




Bush to Ask for Patience in Iraq War
Bush to Issue Plea for Patience in Iraq War; Snow Says Withdrawal Will Give Enemy a Victory
By BEN FELLER
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush marked the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq on Monday as the White House tried to counter Democratic attempts to force a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Bush was expected to issue a plea for more patience in the war, which has stretched longer with higher costs than the White House ever anticipated. The president was to make a statement in the Roosevelt Room.

"It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that our best option is to pack up and go home," Bush was to say, according to an administration official who saw an advance text of his remarks. "While that may be satisfying in the short run, the consequences for American security would be devastating."

White House press secretary Tony Snow went a step further, telling reporters in his morning briefing that a war spending bill up for consideration by the full House this week would "provide victory for the enemy." The legislation, in addition to providing funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the year, would effectively require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008.

"That is not a fund-the-troops bill but a withdraw-the-troops bill," Snow said. "We think that is an approach that is conducive to defeat. It is a recipe for failure, not for victory. ... It would provide victory for the enemy and not the much-needed and deserved victory for the people of Iraq. Furthermore, it would forfeit the sacrifice that our troops have made in the field."

The president also was to meet with his National Security Council on the war and hold a closed-circuit television conference call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad.

Entering its fifth year, the war has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 members of the U.S. military.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier Monday staunchly defended going to war but acknowledged the administration should have sent more troops initially to quell the civil strife following the invasion.

Asked on CBS's "The Early Show" to say what the administration could have done better, she said that, early on, officials "might have looked to a more localized, more decentralized approach to reconstruction.

"... And I do believe that the kind of counterinsurgency strategy in which Gen. (David) Petraeus is now pursuing, in which we have enough forces to clear an area and hold it, so that building and governance can emerge, is the best strategy. And that probably was not pursued in the very beginning."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a persistent critic of the war strategy but a supporter of the war itself, has repeatedly complained that not enough U.S. troops were placed on the ground in the weeks and months following the March 2003 invasion.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., also appearing on CBS, maintained that "the only way you end sectarian violence is to occupy a country or have a decentralized government.

"You've got to give these people (the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds) breathing room like we did in Bosnia," Biden said. "You've got to separate these people. This is a failed strategy."

On Sunday, President Bush's national security adviser said that House Democrats will assure failure in Iraq and waste the sacrifice of U.S. soldiers with their legislation to remove troops. The House's war spending bill includes a troop withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008.

Lawmakers know the president will veto the measure, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said, making the exercise a "charade."

Democratic lawmakers say the public put them in charge of Congress to demand more progress in Iraq and to start getting the U.S. troops out.

The timeline for troop withdrawal under the House bill would speed up if the Iraqi government cannot meet its own benchmarks for providing security, allocating oil revenues and other essential steps. The administration opposes setting such timelines.

The House plan appears to have little chance of getting through the Senate, where Democrats have a slimmer majority. Even if it did, Bush has promised to veto it. But the White House is aggressively trying to stop it anyway, fearful of the message the world will hear if the House approves a binding bill to end the war.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday the House bill could make it impossible for military commanders to do their work.

Congressional Democrats, put in power in large part because of anti-war public sentiment, are trying to use their power of the purse to force action. So far, Iraq's leadership is struggling to meet the major benchmarks that it has pledged to the United States.

The impending House vote concerns a $124 billion spending bill, $95.5 billion of which is targeted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of the other money is for unrelated domestic programs, which also has angered the White House.

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