2 MONTHS LATER, NO PROGRESS

Gen. Mixon stated over 2 months ago that he did not have enough troops to quell the violence in Diyala province. He still doesn't have enough troops:


Presenter: U.S. Army Commander of Multnational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon
May 11, 2007

Q General, do you -- well, two things. One is that, do you think that the surge in forces is going to be required into next year? And the second thing is, do you have enough troops in your area now to do, you know, the job that needs to be done?

GEN. MIXON: I have enough soldiers in my area of Nineveh province, Salahuddin province and also Kirkuk province to provide that security and to conduct operations with those divisions in that area and to move them forward. I do not have enough soldiers right now in Diyala province to get that security situation moving.

We have plans to put additional forces in that area. I can't discuss the details of that. We have put additional forces in there over the last couple of months, an additional Stryker Battalion. But I'm going to need additional forces in Diyala province to get that situation to a more acceptable level so the Iraqi security forces will be able in the future to handle that.

More on Diyala:

GEN. MIXON: Moving over to the governance line of effort, I'll use the following terms: "functional," which means the government is functioning; "semi-functional," which means the government is functioning but with challenges that are slowing our progress; and "nonfunctional," which is the same as the name implies, the government is not functioning in an appropriate manner and is impacting our ability to provide a secure environment, and most important, essential services for the population.

Government in Diyala, however, is nonfunctional. The leaders of this province are still working on their 2007 budget, and I was advised today that they have completed that budget, although late. Unfortunately, they failed to execute their 2006 budget, which puts the province well behind on essential services. They cannot regularly achieve a quorum in their provincial council, and they fail to provide those essential services the population needs.


Q General, I'm Carl Osgood. I write for Executive Intelligence Review. Can you characterize how the level of violence in your area, particularly in the non-Kurdish parts of your area, has changed over the last four months since the beginning -- over four or five months since the beginning of the surge, basically?

GEN. MIXON: We've seen the level of violence in Diyala province increase. We believe that's caused by two factors. Number one, we have picked up our level of offensive operations, so we've been engaging the enemy and moving them out of areas that they in the past were operating and may have had safe haven. But number two, we also do believe that there are elements moving out of Baghdad.

In the other areas, the level of violence has remained about the same. But we have seen more spectacular attacks, VBIEDs and so forth, directed against the civilian population, directed against the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army. But we also have seen a greater number of attacks against civilians throughout our battlespace. And so that's what we have seen across my area of operation.