General Casey says:

I know you are probably tired of hearing/reading about Iraq. Most people argue about staying or leaving or if we should have gone at all. Fine arguments to be made on all sides. But we are there so it is helpful to know how things are going. One side of that story is hearing from the head guy in charge. Last week he had a press briefing.

Here's the transcript.

BRYAN WHITMAN (deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs):
Well, with that, General Casey, thank you for joining us today. Obviously
General Casey needs little introduction. He's been the commanding general
of the Multinational Forces in Iraq. He's been in command there since
July of 2004. He last joined us here via satellite in December. And he's
here to give you a brief operational update and then to answer some of
your questions. So with that, General Casey, thank you very much for
taking the time this morning, and I'll turn it over to you.

GEN. CASEY: Well, good morning, everyone. I know we promised you my British deputy originally. He's younger, better looking and much more articulate, but I'll try to hold up my end of the bargain here.

I did want to give you a perspective, my perspective, on really the last 10 days of what's gone on here in the aftermath of the Samarra mosque bombing. As Ambassador Khalilzad and I said in our initial joint statement condemning the bombings, we saw this as a deliberate attempt to foment sectarian strife at a very sensitive time in Iraq's political development. And while it's been a difficult few days, I can tell you that Iraqis have again risen to the occasion.

Let me give you a couple of data points here. First of all, the Iraqi security forces performed well across the country, generally well, not uniformly well. And I'll give you some examples of both the positive and the negative here later. But we're quite pleased with what we saw both in the Iraqi army, in some of the Iraqi police and with the coordination -- improved coordination that we're seeing between the army and the police.

In general, Iraqi security force leaders took the initiative early on in moving to full alert and to securing key sites. In eight of the 18 provinces in Iraq, there was little to no reaction to the bombing, and this includes Anbar province, which as you know has been one of the most difficult challenges that we've wrestled with. In eight other provinces, there were demonstrations and there was militia activity, but it was quickly contained by Iraqi police and by the Iraqi army. And this demonstrates a maturing capability to cooperate and operate effectively in providing domestic order, and we saw this in several places around the country.

In Baghdad and Basra, where our security response was also strong, it did take the Iraqi security forces a few days to settle the situation, and this with the assistance of the coalition forces in a supporting role.

Now I think it's important to note here that in all cases, Iraqi security ministries and Iraqi security force leadership directed the operations, and the coalition responded in a supporting and assisting role.

Additionally, the Iraqi transitional government reacted to the situation by imposing curfews and driving vans, making public calls for calm, and these also assisted in bringing down the levels of violence.

The second point I'd like to make and to address is the levels of violence themselves.

Candidly, in the initial days following the bombing, these days were kind of a confusing jumble of exaggerated reporting that actually took us a few days to kind of sort through.

What did we find?

First of all, the overall levels of violence did not increase substantially as a result of the bombing. In fact, the levels of violence the week after the violence -- the week after the bombing were comparable to the two previous weeks.

Second, the nature of the violence did, in fact, change with attacks on mosques and civilian killings increasing initially and then gradually tapering off.

We can confirm about 30 attacks on mosques around the country, with less than 10 of those mosques moderately damaged and only two or three of those mosques severely damaged.

There are other reports -- we have sent forces out to check them -- in one instance in Baghdad, we checked eight reports -- visited eight mosques that were reportedly damaged. We found one broken window in those eight mosques.

So as I said, we had to sort -- it took us a few days to sort our way through what we considered in a lot of cases to be exaggerated reports.

On the civilian killings, we do believe that about 350 civilians have been killed as a result of the sectarian violence following the bombing.

This is, obviously, unacceptable and something that we and the Iraqi transitional government and security forces continue to work hard to prevent.

I should note that with the exception of the suicide attacks that took place on the 28th, the number of civilian killings has also tapered off over time.

The third point on the general security situation, as well as the violence, there were numerous demonstrations around the country, varying in size from 50 to 100 to several thousand. There were actually 20 demonstrations around the country where greater than a thousand people participated. There were no incidents -- significant incidents of violence associated with any of these demonstrations. They were, by and large, all conducted peacefully, with the support of the Iraqi security forces.

So, has there been violence and terrorism here in Iraq in the wake of the Samarra bombings? Clearly. Is that violence out of control? Clearly not.

Now, it appears that the crisis has passed, but we all should be clear that Iraqis remain under threat of terrorist attack by those who will stop at nothing to undermine the formation of this constitutionally elected government, a government of national unity and a government that represents all Iraqis.

I also know there's questions on the role of militias within this violence. Now, our estimate is that in the immediate wake of the bombings, in areas like Sadr City, militia did take to the streets. But in the vast majority of the cases, they yielded to Iraqi police and Iraqi security forces without conflict. We do have reports of Iraqi security forces assisting militia movements, particularly in the east Baghdad area, and we also believe that groups of militia were primarily responsible for the attacks against the mosques in the Baghdad area. And we continue to follow up on the information that we have on these with the Iraqi security forces.

This incident and its aftermath has highlighted for the Iraqi government the need to deal with the militia issue in the very near future, and we think that's a good thing.

So, a difficult few days here in Iraq that came at a very sensitive time. And while the danger in not completely past, the Iraqis have again risen to the occasion against the terror that is designed to deny them their future.

I'll close by letting the American people know how their armed forces continue to do a magnificent job here in Iraq and were instrumental in resolving this crisis here over the last few days. I continue to remain impressed with their commitment, their courage, their compassion and their competence. And through their efforts and the efforts of our Iraqi security force brothers in arms, we continue to make progress here in Iraq.

Thank you very much. I'd be happy to take your questions.
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