The Redhunter

First from Hertling's opening remarks

GEN. HERTLING: The last time, as Gary said, that I spoke to (reporters at the Pentagon via satellite) was 11 February. On that particular day, we had been involved in an operation we were calling Iron Harvest down in Diyala, the southern part of our province, for about a month and a half. And it was just a few days after that press briefing that we thought we had secured the area enough to switch -- using a military term -- our main effort and start pushing enablers, like aviation, engineers, intelligence, up to the northern province of Nineveh, and specifically the city of Mosul. We did that in about mid-February, and we began to set the conditions for the operations which are ongoing there now, along with our Iraqi brothers in the 2nd and 3rd Iraqi army division.

You can see what's happening; Al-Qaeda in Iraq is slowing being squeezed into an area smaller and smaller. Here's more of Hertling's opening statement:

So while we continued to fight through the February-March-April time frame in the southern part of our area of operations -- which, just as a reminder, is about the size of the state of Pennsylvania -- we really shifted our effort primarily to Mosul and also some of the other areas where we thought the enemy was located, and that enemy being specifically al Qaeda.

With our Iraqi brothers in the four Iraqi army divisions which are part of the northern provinces, we've seen some significant gains over the last several months in the north, more so in Salahuddin, Diyala and Kirkuk province, but less so in Nineveh and specifically Mosul, although that's beginning to change as well.
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Some of you have heard and some of you have reported that many key AQI leaders have escaped. That first report came out of Diyala province when we were in Muqdadiyah. I've seen reports of it since we started our operation in Mosul, and I would suggest to you that that's -- just isn't true.

I'd be interested in where those comments come from. We've captured or killed a significant number of al Qaeda fighters in both Diyala and Nineveh as well as the two of our other provinces. And those who did leave or attempt to leave, we're continuing to pursue those in some of the desert areas throughout our area of operations....

The first question from a reporter touched on troop levels going down and whether Hertling would have enough to complete operations in Mosul:

Q Hi, General. This is Courtney Kube from NBC News. Defense officials, military officials continue to call Mosul the last urban stronghold of al Qaeda in Iraq. I'm curious, as the numbers in the surge continue to move -- as the troops in the surge continue to redeploy, there's talk of additional redeployments -- the numbers of troops in Iraq going down -- are you concerned, as the commander of this area of Mosul, that you aren't going to have enough troops? Do you have enough now? Looking forward, I mean, where do you see your area standing?

GEN. HERTLING: Well, I think the comments about Mosul being the last urban stronghold stand true today. It certainly is an urban stronghold. But I think one of the things that's been interesting is the majority of efforts in Mosul itself have been conducted by Iraqi forces, not us. We were able to contribute in the build-up of the security measures. As an example, there were almost 30 combat outposts built between that February time frame I talked about and the start of operations on 10 May. Most of those were done primarily by U.S. engineers with some help from Iraqi engineers that are improving in capability.

We are continuing to provide air support. We just did a major air insertion of an entire Iraqi brigade using U.S. helicopters last week in a very successful operation the Iraqis called Lion's Hunt in the western desert.

So I mean, we're still contributing to this. But quite frankly my partner, General Riyadh, has been leading the charge in Mosul to improve the security conditions there. Right now, I think, it would probably be accurate to say it is the urban stronghold today.

But I'll never say anything is last with al Qaeda, because you never know what's going to happen to them next. We think that they have gone out into the desert areas. We are pursuing them out there.

So as is typical with commanders, Hertling is confident that we've got the upper hand, but cautious enough not to write AQI off. Maybe we learned our lesson from the early days of the war.

Although this next question was about foreign fighters, part of Hertling's answer illustrates the importance of creating jobs and improving the economy in defeating the insurgency

Q General, it's Tom Bowman with NPR. Could you offer a little more detail on the leadership that you're picking up, with al Qaeda, in Diyala and Ninawa? And also you mentioned the level three fighters, those who are just doing it for a buck. Give us a sense of the numbers you're rolling up. And finally any sense of foreign fighters here or evidence of foreign financing?

GEN. HERTLING: Yes, there's quite a bit of evidence and, in fact, some foreign fighters that we have detained, primarily in the north but also in northern Salahaddin province, if you know where that is, near the towns of Shirkat and some other areas.

We're seeing some foreign-fighter lines of operations coming in, from both the open Syrian desert to the west but also through the north, through the Syrian ports, that they're being smuggled in, in various ways.
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The level three guys are the most interesting. We had some discussion when we started the operations in Mosul with the minister of the Interior, minister of Defense where one of the Iraqi generals, the intelligence individual for the Iraqi force that was up there, put a number on what he thought was the number of terrorists in the city of Mosul. We had a discussion right after that saying that about half of those could potentially be swung away from the organization if jobs were more available, because many of these guys are doing some of these criminal or terrorist actions just in order to get paid and to survive.

So the level three guys are the ones that, while we still sometimes have to either kill or capture them, hopefully the increase in the infrastructure and the ability to provide jobs may cause some additional tipping of this organization in the north, and everywhere else in Iraq, for that matter.

And then later on we had this exchange in which Maj. Gen. Hertling expanded on this theme

Q One of the keys, though, is finding them something to do, right, as they come out? And you mentioned jobs earlier. How are you addressing that effort to just kind of create something for them to do?

GEN. HERTLING: Yeah, that's linked to several things that we've got going on here in the north. It's not only the detainee-release that it's critical to find jobs -- the detainee-release -- those released from detention are critical to find jobs for, but we're also trying to transition the several thousand Sons of Iraq, the concerned local citizen program. We're trying to do that in the short term, before October of next year.

We have, right now, 32,000 Sons of Iraq in the north. We think we'll get, by the time it's over, between 6(,000) and 7,000 detainees released back into the area over the next year or so.

So that is a significant number to find jobs for.

But I think, quite frankly -- and that's one of the things I'm glad you pointed this out, because not only is the U.S. government helping in this program, with the State Department, trying to get -- (short audio break) -- infrastructure up and running again, but the Iraqi government's helping significantly as well, with the ICERP program, to get buildings up and operational; you buy contractors that way; they're getting new infrastructure repair teams going; some of the power lines are being repaired, and that takes manpower and labor.

So, as infrastructure continues to rise, that unemployment rate, which is somewhere, depending on which province you go to in our area of operations, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent, it is critical, and those detainees being released into that unemployment population is something that concerns us, we're watching very closely. Quite frankly, it is not only -- for us not only about fighting the insurgency, it's finding jobs and helping the Iraqi government and the Provincial Council find jobs for these young men and women.

So contrary to what Keith Olbermann and other crazed leftists think, no we're not just running around killing innocent Iraqis. We're trying to make Iraq a better place, which will enhance the security of the region, deal al Qaeda a huge blow, and thus enhance the security of the United States.