U.S. General on Winning in Iraq

JIM LEHRER:

Now, an update report from Iraq, and it comes from the number three commander there, Army Lt. Gen. John Vines.

Ray Suarez talked with him this morning from his headquarters in Baghdad.

RAY SUAREZ:

Gen. John Vines, welcome to the program.

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

It's good to be with you, Ray.

RAY SUAREZ:

Well, General, now that it's been more than two years since the fall of Baghdad, if you were explaining to a bunch of visitors to the city today what you're doing, who are Americans fighting today in Iraq?

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

Well, there are three broad groups here. There are religious extremists that are sometimes referred to as Sunni religious extremists, although they're not uniquely Sunnis, but there are some religious extremists. Zarqawi would be numbered among that group, and they want to impose their will on the entire populous of Iraq, as well as this portion of the world, indeed a large portion of the world. And they're willing to go to extraordinarily violent means to achieve that. Zarqawi has condemned himself by saying it's acceptable to murder innocent Iraqis, men, women and children, to achieve his violent purposes.

There's a second group that are sometimes referred to as former regime elements related to the Baathist regime under Saddam Hussein, and certainly they wish to regain power. They are perhaps slightly larger in number than the, the religious extremists, who are fortunately, although violent, they're relatively small in number.

And then there's a larger element sometimes referred to as the Sunni Arab rejectionists that I think are currently involved in some of the violence, and they perhaps have a more nationalistic approach; they are opposed to the presence of any foreign elements on Iraqi soil. So I think the three broad categories are probably who we are dealing with.

RAY SUAREZ:

And as a military commander, how do you organize to fight those different kinds of groups – one colonel in Iraq told a reporter recently, "Every time I kill one, I make three." It seems that that's pretty tough math to work with.

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

I can't, I can't make those numbers come up. Certainly a kinetic solution or a military solution is not the ultimate solution to the insurgency in Iraq. That is a reconciliation of the government, of the various factions. Factional violence, sectarian violence is certainly something we are very concerned about. And so while there is a fairly small and violent group that reason is not possible with, that we can't convince that what they should do is work together for a — for a broader Iraqi government, they must be either captured or killed.

RAY SUAREZ:

So, if I follow you, a political solution would go some distance toward ending at least a phase of the insurgency, but what about that part that's fed by foreign troops, can American and other forces seal the borders of Iraq?

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

No. We can't seal any borders; we can't seal American borders. That is a physical impossibility. What we do have to do, however, is limit the influence of foreign terrorists who infiltrate in, in many cases for the purpose of murdering Iraqis.

We have to assist the Iraqi government in helping to stem the flow of that. Some of that can be done from in Iraq; some of it can be done by – through assistance of Iraq's neighbors, such as Syria, and we are working closely with the Iraqi government and negotiations with Syria to help stem that flow.

RAY SUAREZ:

Is it your sense that attacks like the one earlier this week that killed children getting sweets from American forces dries up support, dries up the kind of quiet support that rank and file Iraqis might give, the cover, the shelter, the ability to melt into the landscape that some of these fighters seem to have?

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

Well, there is no question that Iraqis are repulsed by the slaughter of their own citizens. They're outraged by it, and they should be. The entire world should be. Certainly the Islamic world, the countries of the coalition are repulsed by it, and so as Iraqis understand that what this is about is imposing someone else's value system on them, that someone wants to impose their view of a radical Islam on them, they are repulsed by that; and so consequently the information and tips we get from neighborhoods and from citizens on the street are increased.

RAY SUAREZ:

More recently American troops have been doing operations in Western Iraq trying to root out the nest of insurgents. Are you able to hold those places after those assaults and sweeps, or are they left to allow the re-infiltration of those fighters?

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

We're increasing the presence of primarily Iraqi security forces in the western portion of the country. Insurgents, particularly foreign insurgents, such as Zarqawi, have found that they can operate with relative impunity because it's a relatively lightly populated area; they can intimidate the local populace into supporting them, or at least not opposing them, and use it to train and indoctrinate some of these foreigners and then send them into places like Ramadi or Fallujah or Baghdad or Mosul to attack its citizenry.

And so as we push coalition and Iraqi forces out there to begin to control that area, we will see I believe positive effects. It is a huge area. Iraqi security forces are not completely fielded. Some of them are fully trained, others are less so, and it quite honestly takes some time, so we are beginning to influence that region of the country increasingly.

RAY SUAREZ:

Recently we had several former enlisted men on the NewsHour talking to us about their experiences deployed in Iraq, and though they plotted over a spectrum of views about their service and what they were accomplishing, one thing they did agree on was that they felt they didn't have enough people to do the things that they were asked to do or were asked to redo because they were undermanned for some of these missions, that they had to go back and rebuild some of the things that they felt that they had already accomplished months after doing them the first time because there just weren't enough people around. How do you respond to that?

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

Well, any country, any populace, normally would not like the presence of foreign troops on its soil. To add to the number of foreign troops, I believe, would be counterproductive. This insurgency cannot be won by foreign troops; it can't be won by British troops, American troops, or others; it has to be won by the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government and a constitution that provides for protection for all its citizens.

So the idea that we are going to win an insurgency, we are going to defeat the insurgency, the coalition, and then give freedom to the Iraqi people does not track. Freedom can't be given to someone; it must be taken, and so they have to take that.

We can create conditions so that they develop capacity in security forces, they develop governmental capacity, they develop capacities within their ministries to provide for basic services, they develop capacity to support their own security forces him the field; that can happen. We need to help create conditions so they can develop that, but doing it for them is not the right answer.

RAY SUAREZ:

So let me make my last question about that in specific. How is the transition, the training up of an Iraqi army going? Are there enough people who show up to work every day, show up in uniform, and provide good order and disciplined response to the orders that they're given?

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

I have to tell you that I have great admiration for the security forces of Iraq, the army, who I most closely align with, the police and the various agencies that provide for the internal security as well. Just today, Iraqi police disarmed a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device and detained and wounded someone who had a suicide vest on; they did that at great personal risk. They have suffered enormous numbers of injured in protecting their own populace. They're doing, in my view, a tremendous job.

There is an enormous amount that remains to be done; let's be absolutely candid about this, but the courage of the individual Iraqi soldier or policeman is not in question. What we have to do, though, is develop institutions that can support them in the field, institutions that can ensure they're paid. They can ensure that when they're deployed that they have adequate food, that they have adequate water, that they have re-supplies that they need to conduct their day-to-day business. And that takes, quite honestly, some time.

RAY SUAREZ:

Lt. Commander John Vines is the commander of the multinational forces in Iraq.

General, thanks for being with us.

LT. GEN. JOHN VINES:

It's good to be with you. Thank you.