The Redhunter

COL. GREEN: ...Our current mission is to provide support to our Iraqi security forces partners inside the city of Baghdad and to conduct combined counterinsurgency operations with the ISF to disrupt and to defeat the enemy outside of the city....

Security is still the first order of business for the units in this brigade, as well as our Iraqi partners in uniform. Overall, I think we've been making steady progress in this area.

It's been just over three months since the Iraqi security forces assumed control -- they assumed control of and also responsibility for the security situation inside the city.

...so how are we doing? At this point, overall attack numbers, and those include IEDs and the dangerous explosively formed projectiles or EFPs, those attack numbers remain pretty low and are actually at lower levels than those we experienced, in the springtime, leading up to the transition point on 30 June. In terms of attack lethality, casualties among U.S. forces have taken a significant downturn.

Now, we did see an increase in Iraqi security force casualties in the July time frame. And I think most of you are aware what the civilian casualties associated with the 19 August VBIED attack on the foreign ministry and the ministry of finance.

But casualty figures have steadily declined since that time, and I'm encouraged by initial returns. I'm also mindful of still lethal and capable enemy cells and networks that seek to inflict harm on security forces and innocent Iraqis every day.

We've found that the Iraqi security forces with whom we partner, especially the federal police and the Iraqi army, continue to stand up to extremist and insurgent groups like al Qaeda. And the Iraqi citizens continue to reject attempts by these groups to incite sectarian violence....

Moving on to civil capacity, in the post-30-June environment, we have been able to expand on an already-robust civil-capacity effort across the brigade by placing even more of our emphasis and our resources on stability operations. The improved security situation, gained from months and years past, means that the brigade combat team and its embedded provincial reconstruction teams can give increased weight to expanding the capability of Iraqi local government and to improving the quality of life for Iraqi people with greater access to essential services and employment. ...

...I believe we've been able to generate and sustain our momentum in helping the Iraqis build civil capacity because of how we have organized ourselves for this challenge. We can discuss these initiatives more later if you like, but the take-away here is that we've established a structure that closely tied our embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams directly to the brigade, fusing these organizations into one; thereby ensuring better synchronization and unity of effort.

Summarizing, we see the following

1) Security is still the number one concern, so counterinsurgency operations are still ongoing
2) Attacks of all sorts are down
3) Since the "spectacular" attack of Aug 19 civilian casualties are down
4) The Iraqi security forces can stand on their own
5) Since the security has improved so much they are moving to stability operations.

On to the Q & A. First off we get more detail on the security situation. As mentioned above, you'll want to watch the video so you actually see the charts he refers to.

Q Thank you. I'd like to begin. This is Courtney Kube from NBC News.

Colonel, you said that the overall attacks are pretty low. Can you quantify those for us, how many you were seeing back in March when you first moved into the area; how many you're seeing now?

And then, can you talk a little bit about who's behind the attacks in your area and who's the target? I assume it's -- it sounds as if it's Iraqi security forces, but just give us a better sense of what you're seeing in security incidents.

COL. GREEN: Courtney, I can. And if you could bear with me, I want to refer to some statistics to help me get the exact numbers. But if I understand you correctly, you really want some more specific details on the numbers of attacks that we've seen that show this decline, and then who I think might be behind those attacks.

So I'm looking at a chart right now that shows the number of attacks that we've experienced by type. And I'll hold it up in front of me, you know, just in case you're able to see it, and I'm not sure you are. ...

And you can see that, after our TOA, we did have a slight increase leading up to the 30 June time frame. And since that period, attacks have actually declined.

Now, this number shows higher in September, but I would just caution you and say that on the 31st of August, the terrain that we're responsible for, our battlespace, essentially doubled. So attacks really are down overall. And then again, if you look at lethality -- and lethality is depicted on the lower charts down here -- you can see that numbers did spike in the June and July time frames, June leading up to the security agreement, July just after. I think this was a high of 122 casualties involving Iraqi security forces. But those numbers have dropped substantially since. And coalition forces are down here at the bottom. They remain real low.

In terms of overall numbers of attacks, I think in the September time frame between our two areas, on the east side and the west side of the river, we had about 50 attacks overall. I want to caution you and tell you that we include every found IED, every found cache, as an attack, because we record those events based upon the enemy's intent. The actual successful lethal attacks are quite less than that.

Now, those are numbers, but who's behind the attacks? We have seen a drop-off in the targeting by Shi'a extremist groups following the 30 June accord. They still occur, but they occur in less frequent numbers than we saw in the spring time frame. On the other hand, we've seen some additional targeting that we attribute to al Qaeda or other types of insurgent or resistant groups.

Even after it was clear that the surge was successful, commanders often described the situation as "fragile," warning that while we had been successful if we weren't careful Iraq could backslide. It was stressed that a premature withdrawal of troops, for example, could leave a vacuum into which insurgent or criminal elements would reappear and perhaps reignite sectarian tension. We stopped hearing Iraq described by briefers that way in 2009, but remembering this description it is natural that reporters will ask if Iraq is still fragile.

In the 01 Oct briefing, Al Pessin asked Gen. Odierno whether Iraq was still fragile. He does so again today:

Q Colonel, it's Al Pessin from Voice of America. ...If I could just follow up briefly, over the years various officials and officers have used the word "fragile" to describe progress in Iraq. Do you think it's still fragile? Or how fragile is it? Or if not, what words would you use?

COL. GREEN: Yes, sir. I am familiar with that term. And you know, it is combat, so it's difficult when, you know, events like the 19th of August happen. ...

And so you'd look at an event like that, and you'd say: Okay, the enemy is still capable of conducting spectacular attacks and inflicting large amounts of casualties. And I think that remains the case.

However, I do believe that the Iraqi security forces grow stronger each and every day. I see the growth in governance and civil capacity, which is coming along. I think it's got some ways to go. I'm very encouraged by the progress, and I think that, you know, very critical for us right now is to have, you know, elections that go off successfully here in the coming months and then witness the seating of a new government.

And that transition, I think, will be really critical in cementing the gains that we've experienced thus far. ...what I see every week out there is forward momentum right now.

Although more was discussed in this briefing, the last topic we'll cover is that of Iranian influence. Obama campaigned as the candidate who would bring back diplomacy. Today the Nobel Peace Prize Committee gave him their award, mostly for things they hoped he would do in the future. One thing President Obama can do to bring peace to Iraq is to end the pernicious Iranian influence. Let's see him earn his prize by doing that.

Q Sir, it's Mike Mount with CNN.

You had made a brief reference about Iranian influence in your sector. How much are you seeing of fighters that may have gone into Iran, for training or -- and then come back in and set up in your sector? And how serious is the Iranian influence in your sector, compared to other parts in Baghdad?

COL. GREEN: Thanks, Mike.

We do see Iranian influence. We also see some influence of foreign fighters or insurgents, who have moved back and forth from other countries. I mean, I've seen some that have migrated in from Syria for example.

Many of our most important targets are individuals who have had some migration or spent some time outside of the country with one of these external actors.

We actually had a detention yesterday that involved a high-value target that had spent some time in Iran, in the not-too-distant past. So that does occur. Remember that my area of operations includes places like Sadr City.

So I don't think it's uncommon that we would have, you know, external influence, the migration of some weapons or materials that have their origin from abroad. You know, we have seen that. But we track it pretty effectively and we track it in conjunction with Iraqi forces.

They assist us as well in that effort. And then as those individuals appear, as those networks become activated, we action them when we have -- when we have the conditions set to do so. Over.

Overall this was an excellent briefing and we learned much of interest. As of now Iraq is on the right path.