WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon's top officer says a general who once headed Saddam Hussein's infantry does not and probably will not command an Iraqi force that is replacing Marines at Fallujah. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that news media were "very, very inaccurate" in identifying Saleh as commander of the Iraqi force that moved during the weekend into positions outside Fallujah. Marines previously held the positions as they enforced a 3-week-old siege.
Myers said officials in Baghdad were checking into Saleh's background. Friends and relatives have said he served during the 1980s in deposed Iraqi President Saddam's Republican Guard. Later, they said, he headed Saddam's infantry forces. "There are people that know his record, know what he's done in the previous Saddam Hussein regime," Myers told CBS'"Face the Nation." "They're going to have to find an appropriate role, if a role at all, for him," he said.
On "Fox News Sunday," Myers said Saleh "has not been vetted yet and probably won't be the one in command."
On Sunday, Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne told reporters near Fallujah that Saleh had opposed Saddam's regime and paid a "steep personal price." Byrne and his colleagues appear to have accepted Saleh because he offered the best alternative to bloody fighting that could have produced casualty rates politically untenable both in Iraq and the United States.
Whatever the disposition of Saleh, Myers said, "We want Iraqis to do this work, and this is a microcosm of what we want to happen all over Iraq." He said the original objectives in Fallujah remained. "The reports that the Marines have pulled back, not true. The Marines are still where they've been," Myers said. "The Marines are prepared to follow through on this action if they have to." But, he said, "We think this is far preferable than the U.S. going in there in a very major combat operation to achieve those objectives. If we can do it with Iraqis, that is preferable."
Arizona Sen. John McCain, second-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, found considerable fault with the outcome so far in Fallujah. McCain, a naval aviator in the Vietnam War who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war, said the U.S. military has made too many threats without following through. "The perception right now is that we are not acting in a decisive fashion and there's no greater mistake you can make in the conduct of warfare," McCain said on ABC's "This Week."
| If Saleh doesn't do it, Marines have to. |
|