The Redhunter

GEN. WOLFF: Great, Bryan. Thanks a lot. I would like to make a very brief opening statement. So that will provide the context you just talked about. So first of all, thanks to the members of the press for being here today. And good evening from Baghdad.

As Bryan said, I'm Major General Terry Wolff. I'm the commanding general of United States Division-Center. As many of you know, Multinational Division-Baghdad and Multinational Division-West were brought together in two separate transfers of authority, which occurred in January. And that created the organization we presently know today as United States Division-Center.

Our team is built around the 1st Armored Division headquarters out of Wiesbaden, Germany, and also the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, which is an AAB out of Al Anbar province.

In Baghdad, we've got the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which is a Stryker unit out of Fort Lewis, the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, which is organized as an AAB, and the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, another infantry brigade.

Additionally we've got an aviation brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 16th Engineer Brigade. Just as a point of reference, 1st of the 3rd AAB arrived in Iraq simultaneously with 1st Armored Division. But the remainder of these forces that I've previously mentioned have been on the ground for a number of months, before we arrived.

As you all know, Sunday's election was an historic event. The Iraqis in Al Anbar province and Baghdad were protected superbly by the Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqi people came out and voted in large numbers. In Al Anbar there were no high-profile attacks, no attacks on polling centers and no loss of life. In Baghdad, the ISF succeeded in preventing vehicle-borne IEDs and also suicide-vest attacks.

While there were a few incidents which produced casualties, and a number of noise-bottle bombs, the Iraqi security forces secured the population and provided a secure, credible election process. And so before I close and take a question or two or three, I'd emphasize that Sunday's election-day success didn't just happen. The ISF owns security responsibilities in Iraq. The battlespace is theirs. They're in charge. They set the conditions for the elections through their hard work in the months leading up to the election day, and it paid handsome dividends on Sunday.

The ISF task didn't begin on or end on Sunday, as I just mentioned. And since then, they've continued to provide security on a daily basis for the last couple of days. We know that the ISF has an important role to play in the future, and we look forward to continuing to partner with them.

And so with that, I'll take your questions, please.

I think most media accounts back this up.

There are perhaps three measures of how well a new democracy is doing

1) Whether elections are relatively free and fair, and held without violence or intimidation
2) How the victors act when they assume power
3) How the losers act, especially those in power who are turned out of office.

Iraq passed test #1, at least this time. Although there have been several elections, the jury is out on numbers two and three. That said, it's so far so good.

On to the Q & A:

Q General, it's Anne Flaherty, with Associated Press. As we await the election results, do you see any outcome that could change the pace of U.S. withdrawal, or should change the pace of U.S. withdrawal?

GEN. WOLFF: You know, at this point -- at this point, no. You know, we've been told, based on the president's announcement last year at -- during his Lejeune speech, that we -- that USFI would come down to 50,000 folks. And so that's what we believe will occur, and that's the -- that's the planning process we move forward with, to move to that number.

This first series of questions is from from Al Pessin of VOA, who asks whether our forces are involved in combat and the impact of the elections on plans for a drawdown.

The Iraq Casualties website has the details. Follow the link for the complete chart, but here is one of their graphs showing combat fatalities by year. The bars are unmarked, but they're 2003 to 2009. You can see the decline since the success of the surge.

Q General, it's Al Pessin from Voice of America. So do you have any of your troops actually involved in combat at this point?

GEN. WOLFF: Sure. We work with the Iraqis to help them train a number of different elements. And so -- let me give you an example. Many of these Iraqi brigades have what we call commando elements or strike platoons.

They're little -- they're platoons or companies, commando companies, that help them execute offensive operations. This is in addition to many of the soldiers they have out on checkpoints and doing that sort of duty.

And so when -- let's say a federal police unit goes out and executes a mission of this nature to go get a bad guy. There will usually be a U.S. partner element that will move and operate with them.

And so the answer is yes, we partner in that regard. But the person who's knocking on the door of the house that they're going into is Iraqi. It is a warranted operation, based on rules of evidence under the Iraqi system that have been brought forward, with a Article 4 warrant that has been issued by an Iraqi court.
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Q So considering this picture that you painted for us, now that the election has passed, when do you anticipate beginning to draw down the forces in your AOR? And from what level now to approximately what level in August?

GEN. WOLFF: Sure. I won't talk about exact numbers, but what I can say is that -- you know, you've heard us talk about this as a responsible drawdown. Well, some of the responsible drawdown has already happened. I basically took the place of two division headquarters across two provinces. So responsible drawdown began with the arrival of the 1st Army Division assuming its role as the United States Division-Center. We've already had one of the brigade combat teams that were part of the United States Division-Center off-ramp and return to home station.

So in Baghdad province we're down to three brigade combat teams, as you -- as I commented. And now, Anbar, we're down to one; one -- now Anbar is end-stage. In Baghdad, we will eventually come down to one over time. And so the decision that will be made when to start that off-ramp is General Odierno's decision.

We'll skip the rest of the Q &A and move to Gen. Wolff's final comments:

GEN. WOLFF: Well, I would give you a couple of perspectives.

See, you know, you touched on responsible drawdown today. And there's a lot of work that has been ongoing with that. And it didn't just -- doesn't just start or stop with the end of the election process. And so you know, there's a lot of movement that's happened. We're positioning now to turn over a number of American JSSes to the Iraqis. We will also turn over some other bases to them.

It's a fairly comprehensive plan that we've been -- we've been working for a number of months, that our predecessors worked as well, that we continue to refine. And that's based on discussions we have with the Iraqi security forces. So responsible drawdown has been going on for a while around here. And it will continue to September and then beyond.

Secondly I would state that the environment out here is incredibly complex. And while casualty levels seem down, and we acknowledge that the Iraqi security forces did a bang-up job securing their population for the elections, I'd also tell you that we're asking an awful lot of these young American leaders and young American soldiers.
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I'd also mention that the Iraqi security forces, again, have grown significantly. Some of you know I worked -- I worked helping train the ISF on my last rotation, in 2006 and '7. It was a -- it was an army of about 110,000. Well, it's grown to about double that. It was a police of barely 150,000; it's nearly triple that. And so the Iraqi security forces demonstrated on Sunday that they're up to the task.

If it were -- if it were a test, they'd pass with flying colors. And I'm pretty confident that they can continue to secure the government of Iraq and the Iraqi people. There's no doubt in my mind that they can do that exceptionally well.