War plan sets summer of 2008 as goal for U.S. to establish security in Iraq

BAGHDAD – A revised U.S. military plan envisions establishing security at the local level in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq by summer 2008, leading one year later to security conditions nationwide that Iraqi forces are capable of sustaining, U.S. officials \nsaid Tuesday.\nKnown as the Joint Campaign Plan, developed in tandem by Gen. David Petraeus and his political counterpart in Baghdad, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, it reflects a timetable starkly at odds with the push by many in Congress to wind down U.S. involvement in a matter of months.\nPetraeus and Crocker are due to testify before Congress in September on how the current strategy is working and whether it needs to be revised. The strategy was announced in broad terms by President Bush in January, when he ordered five extra Army brigades to Baghdad to help implement it. But the more detailed campaign plan was developed in the months following – not to alter the strategy, but to give it depth, with detailed avenues of approach.\nCol. Steve Boylan, chief spokesman for Petraeus, said the plan is still in the final editing stages and has not yet been put fully into effect. He said that while it sets an initial goal of achieving localized security by summer 2008, it does not make assumptions about specific levels of U.S. troops between now and then, including how long the five extra brigades will stay.\nThe campaign plan’s timeline was first reported in Tuesday’s editions of the New York Times.\nBoylan stressed in a telephone interview that like any military campaign plan, this one is subject to revision as conditions on the ground evolve. Thus the summer 2008 goal, he said, should be seen as “a place holder, a mark on the wall,” not an immovable commitment.\nThe plan envisions using locally based security initiatives, such as those that in western Anbar province have proven successful in reducing insurgent violence this year, as a starting point. Such efforts are now under way elsewhere in Iraq, including some \nparts of Baghdad.\nThat approach, it is hoped, will encourage movement at the national level to achieve political reconciliation, which is the ultimate objective.\nThere are early signs, however, that the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is unwilling to move in that direction. His office has expressed anger at recent U.S. efforts to empower local Sunni groups in an alliance against the al-Qaida in Iraq insurgent group, apparently out of suspicion that these Sunni groups will become extralegal militias allied against \nhis government.\nThe Petraeus-Crocker plan is based on more than military strategy. It factors in a combination of political, economic, security and diplomatic efforts, along the lines Bush has described in recent months, plus actions to be taken by the Iraqi government. That includes movement on long-stalled legislation on oil-sharing, plus measures to bring more Sunnis who were members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party into the government, and other measures designed to promote reconciliation and build a government of national unity.