Casey Urges Patience in Securing Baghdad
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 20, 2007; A14
The deployment of 21,500 additional U.S. troops in Iraq probably will last at least until the end of the summer, a top general said yesterday, urging patience with President Bush's strategy while a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators continued pressing for a new plan.
Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. military officer in Iraq, said that the primary focus of the additional U.S. forces will be to secure a violent Baghdad and that their mission, if it goes as planned, could last well into 2007. He and other defense officials have said in recent days that the new battle for Baghdad could take some time but that it will be apparent in coming months whether progress is being made.
"That's not going to happen overnight either, and you're going to see some progress gradually over the next 60 to 90 days," Casey told reporters in southern Iraq yesterday, according to a transcript. "But I think it's probably going to be the summer, late summer, before we get to the point where the people in Baghdad feel safe in their neighborhoods. . . . The first troops are just arriving now, so we've got to wait and see the effect they have on the situation here before we even start thinking about when we might send them home."
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