Word: petraeus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Baghdad don't seem too worried that the six-month deadline Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr set for his militia's unilateral cease-fire is about to lapse. "There has been some communication back and forth that appears to indicate that it will continue," said Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. U.S. officials say the cease-fire was a major factor in lowering violence across Iraq, where an ongoing surge of U.S. forces is now focused primarily on fighting Sunni extremists. "I would say it probably caused us about a 15 or 20% decrease...
...Wednesday, echoing an earlier threat, a spokesman for Sadr and the Mahdi Army said that if the Shi'ite warlord did not reissue his cease-fire order by Saturday, it would be officially over. Petraeus, Odierno and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are all holding out hope that the cease-fire will be maintained, however. Petraeus said U.S. commanders were keeping up a running dialogue with leadership from the Mahdi Army. "There are numerous discussions ongoing," said Petraeus, who's personally spoken with senior figures in Sadr's circle. "And there's talks at my level, sometimes directly...
...Pentagon is busy pulling out the five combat brigades that "surged" to Iraq last year and helped quell the violence. But many Americans want that withdrawal to continue beyond the 30,000 troops added for the surge. Not so fast, says General David Petraeus, top U.S. commander in Iraq, urging a pause to evaluate the impact of the removal of those five brigades before sending more troops home. This weekend, Defense Secretary Robert Gates backed Petraeus, meaning that when the U.S. troop contingent in Iraq drops from the current 158,000 to about 130,000 in July, it could remain...
...Army officials have made it clear they believe they can trim the 15-month deployments back to 12 months even if the troop level in Iraq remains at 130,000 for a period of time. That will give Petraeus and the Bush Administration, which wants to avoid any action that could jeopardize the past year's gains in Iraq, leverage to suspend the pullout for a time. Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former Army officer, asked Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, at a hearing last week if doing that wouldn't break...
Four Army combat brigades and two Marine battalions are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq in the next few months. General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, has warned that too fast a drawdown could result in the "disintegration of the Iraqi security forces, al Qaeda-Iraq regaining lost ground, [and] a marked increase in violence." "American troops," said the President during his State of the Union speech on Monday, "are shifting from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces." But when it comes to CLCs, the transition will be difficult because the central Baghdad government does...