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  With Violence Down, Reconstruction Underway
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Last Editedkal  Nov 17, 2007 06:25am
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CategoryGeneral
News DateSaturday, November 17, 2007 12:00:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionCoalition officials are taking advantage of a decline in insurgent violence to jumpstart a transition into long-term stability operations, a U.S. commander said Nov. 11 in Baghdad.

Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of Multinational Division Center, told reporters in the International Zone that with the effects of the U.S. troop surge bearing positive fruit in the form of reduced attack numbers, reduced casualties, and an increase in weapons cache finds, U.S. forces can pay more attention to capacity building in Iraq’s towns and provinces.

“(Iraqi) civilian casualties since the first of July are down by 42 percent, Coalition casualties are down by 68 percent, and the Iraqi Security Force casualties are down by 37 percent,” Lynch said.

In the same period, Lynch said there was a 43 percent decrease in overall attacks in his area – Najaf, Karbala, Babil, Wasit and parts of Baghdad province. That number includes a 59 percent decrease in improvised explosive device attacks, he said.

“Why do you think you’ve had that significant change since the first of July?” the general asked.

“The first reason is the surge. The surge gave us the combat power we needed to reach out and touch the enemy,” he explained.

“The second thing is the fact that we don’t commute to work anymore,” he said, referring to Army Gen. David Petraeus’ counter-insurgency strategy of embedding troops into the communities they patrol. Petraeus is the top Coalition commander in Iraq.

“What we do is we conduct operations where the enemy owns the terrain, and the end state of that operation is establishing a patrol base,” Lynch said. From these bases, U.S. troops can provide a “sustained security presence,” he explained.

The tipping point, however, and what is enabling Coalition Forces to press ahead with civil affairs projects, is the participation of the Iraqi people in providing security for their own communities, Lynch said.

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