General Raymond Odierno, commander of the US military forces in Iraq, walked through the 7 Nissan neighborhood of Mosul after the area was cleared of insurgents in a combat operation by US and Iraqi soldiers. Jane ArrafFrom The Christian Science Monitor:
Gen. Raymond Odierno outlines the challenges facing US forces as they continue to tamp down violence while working toward a June deadline to withdraw from Iraqi cities.
Mosul, Iraq - As he walks down the pitted streets of this slowly reviving city, Gen. Raymond Odierno says that despite a goal of pulling out of all Iraqi cities by June, he won't repeat the mistakes of the past and rush withdrawing from areas that could revert to insurgents' control.
"We've learned a lesson here over the last several years – that you have to clear an area, you have to have the force to hold it, and you have to allow the community then to rebuild itself.... If you rush your way through that, then the community will fall back into an insecure state," said General Odierno in a Monitor interview during and after his battlefield visit in this city 200 miles north of Baghdad.
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My Comment: He knows that everything is coming to a close. But it is still a good interview.
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