The Redhunter

GEN. JACOBY: Currently, our enemies are resorting to a campaign of sensationalism through suffering, by directing attacks against Iraq's most vulnerable targets in an attempt to discredit the government of Iraq and the Iraqi security forces. We are seeing determined extremists, insurgents and terrorists employ IEDs against markets, shrines and other places where families gather and civilians go about their daily lives....

Sons of Iraq is another critical area that has seen success. The government of Iraq, which took over the responsibility of paying the Sons of Iraq in May, is now current on pay in all provinces. In addition, more than 5,500 Sons of Iraq have now been transferred into ministerial jobs, with more scheduled to come....

There is a real chance for success here in Iraq, but it's very important to remember our mission is not complete. Our enemies will continue to attack our progress, and they will do it by killing and injuring innocent Iraqis. They will test Iraqi security forces as we move toward the elections and as the new government is seated. But I am confident that Iraqi security forces will pass this test. And now, I'm happy to take your questions.

Indeed for counterinsurgents to succeed the government must be seen as legitimate. There are many factors involved in establishing legitimacy, but the most basic is the ability to provide security.

The Sons of Iraq (SOI) program (originally Concerned Local Citizens) has been a subject in many briefings. Briefly, it was mostly a Sunni operation designed to get "buy in" from the citizens on legitimacy and to provide jobs for men who might otherwise become insurgents. A sort of "super neighborhood watch," the U.S. did not provide them weapons, but everyone in Iraq seems to have an AK-47. When the insurgency was (mostly) defeated, the objective turned to getting jobs for SOI. Originally the mostly Shia government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki balked and dragged it's feet, but consistent and firm U.S. pressure has persuaded them to honor their obligations.

On to the Q & A. In this first exchange Daphne Benoit asks for more detail about the attacks that General Jacoby mentioned:

Q Good afternoon, sir. This is Daphne Benoit with Agence France-Presse. According to your intel, is al Qaeda-Iraq behind most of the spectacular attacks we've seen lately, and if you have a percentage in mind of the attacks perpetrated by al Qaeda? And how big are its -- their network today in Iraq? And are there many foreign fighters, or Iraqis?

GEN. JACOBY: Yeah, thank you for that question. We think al Qaeda in Iraq remains a big problem, and they are greatly diminished since the days of just a few years ago. But they are still able to generate these high-profile attacks that we're concerned about. The frequency of attacks, the scale of the attacks -- not like we've seen in the past -- but the ability to generate a high-profile attack now is causing concern, and I would say it's the targeting of the attacks which causes us the most concern.

And as I said in my opening statement, clearly they're going after targets like civilian population centers, where civilians are meeting, where they're conducting their daily lives. They're doing that to discredit the Iraqi security forces. They're doing that to try to incite sectarian violence...

In the period that we're looking at right now, post-30 June, I consider most of the attacks, the high-profile attacks that you are seeing and that are getting the publicity, are al Qaeda attacks.

Next we have a discussion about AABs, or Advisory assistance brigades. This is the first time they've been mentioned in a briefing. We have heard much about civilian Human Terrain Teams and Provisional Reconstruction Teams, but AABs are new. After googling around a bit they seem to be just what they sound like, specially constructed military units whose specialty is training, advising, and mentoring the Iraqi security forces. They will advise on not just combat but on all aspects, such as logistics, medical, intelligence, etc.

Q Sir, it's Donna Miles with the American Forces Press Service. I'm curious about what you see -- the role of these new AABs that will be flowing into Iraq. Where do you plan to concentrate them? And how will what they're doing support what your goals are?...

GEN. JACOBY: Okay. Thank you. Yeah, the advisory assistance brigades -- it's a concept we believe in. We think it's the right way to go as we move from counterinsurgency and full-spectrum ops to our strategy of being done with combat operations for U.S. forces in August 2010. And then we'll be reliant on our advisory assistance brigades.

I think that the important part about an advisory assistance brigade is, it's -- that it's a mission and it's a mind-set. And it's a series of tasks that we do, and I ran through them earlier. They're advise, assist, enable, train, those kinds of tasks that are clearly within the stability ops realm. We believe Iraqi security forces will be fully capable of conducting the combat operations and other leads in security operations that will be required at that time.

Advisory assistance brigades should be fully on line by August 2010. We're having some good work with brigades right now that have been able to transition into stability ops, learning a lot of lessons, sending those kinds of observations back to the field or back to the training base as we continue to develop the advisory assistance brigades. Great exchange of information between theater and back home in the training base.

We'll look at one last exchange, this time on the all-important issue of whether the Iraqis can maintain stability when U.S. troops are gone

Note that their is no false optimism, and Gen Jacoby does not look at the situation through rose-colored glasses and try to spin us that things will definately get better etc. Lest you think this is a characteristic only of this briefing, I assure you that having watched every briefing by a combat commander for two and a half years briefers without exception are cautious to the point of paranoia about making predictions about the future.

Q General, it's Mike Mount with CNN. If I could approach the drawdown -- the troop drawdown question again. Both Secretary Gates and General Odierno have said that bringing out an extra brigade by the end of the year would be based on security levels. At the beginning of this briefing, you kind of gave a mixed-bag approach on security. Do you think security is going to be stable enough by the end of the year to bring out an extra brigade?

GEN. JACOBY: I think we're headed in a good direction. We are seeing Iraqi security forces, as I said in my opening statement, meet some testing, and some really tough testing, head on. It's too early, really, to say right now whether the operational environment is going to support accelerated troop withdrawals. We'll be ready to do that if we're asked to and if we think that the security environment has improved.

One of the questions is how much longer al Qaeda can continue these types of high-profile attacks. They're -- they are not frequent. The -- al Qaeda and other insurgent forces such as JRTN and a few others cannot sustain this kind of an operational tempo, and we will see if they punch themselves out.

I will tell you, Iraqi security forces are taking the initiative and working hard to sustain security. And so I'm optimistic in the sense that they are going after the problem and they're not backing down. And so we'll see how the environment improves as we head toward the election.

But I will tell you that it's a volatile time period, and I think the testing will continue. And I think we should expect it to. If the environment is looking at the end of the year like we can accelerate, then I'm sure my superiors will have us take a look at that, and we'll figure out whether we can get it done as the year closes out.