Gen. George Casey: Iraq Civil War 'Possible,' Troop Reductions Less Likely

 

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Raddatz: Are you less hopeful that it can happen by the end of the year than you were last year?

Casey: I am not less hopeful that we can continue the drawdown strategy that we began last year, before the end of this year.

Raddatz: Is it less likely that we will be drawing down by the end of the year? Is it less likely that what you said last year will happen because …

Casey: Yeah. We've certainly have delayed our, our thoughts of drawing down this year. It's been delayed. Now, it is not, it's definite that we won't draw down this year but it's probably less likely.

U.S. Strategy In Event of a Civil War

Raddatz: What do you do if it does turn into civil war?

Casey: Well, that's a hypothetical. And I will tell you that the counterinsurgency strategy that we're operating under now, a lot of those elements apply to the situation that we're dealing with right now. And again, the Baghdad situation is different than the situation in Mosul. It's different than the situation in Tikrit and in Anbar and down south. But in all those different places, you have to deny the enemy physical, religious and political sanctuary. You've got to deny them freedom of movement. You have to go after the leaders and their forces. You have to do the same kinds of [things] in a counterinsurgency that we have to do even in Baghdad now. So the troops are trained to do the things that they need to do right now. And they're doing them.

Raddatz: So when it's sectarian strife, you go about it the same way. I mean, it was hard enough figuring out who the enemy was before, right? This makes it more difficult, so, how do they do that?

Casey: What they're focused on is targeting the leaders, for example, of the groups that are the death squads, for example, al Qaeda, for example. Or the people who are putting out IEDs and putting car bombs at them. That's really immaterial to who they are. They are our targets because of what they're doing. It's absolutely a more complex environment now than it has been any time since I've been here. There's no question about it.

Raddatz: Who is the new enemy?

Casey: The new enemy is not a who, the new enemy is a what, and it's sectarian violence. Right now I think that's the greatest threat to the Iraqis' ability to build the kind of country that they want. They recognize that, their leadership is moving to address that, we're helping them, but right now it's a what and not a who.

Raddatz: Is there a plan B?

Casey: Not like Tom Friedman said there's a plan B. We continue to evaluate our strategy here because the enemy, the threat has continued to change and we evolve and adapt our strategy to deal with that. And we're continuing to do that. Right now, I have not seen anything that has caused us to make a significant shift in our approach to what we're doing here, which is to put the Iraqis in a position where they can ultimately have a representative government, security forces that can maintain domestic order and deny Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists. That's where we're going and, by the way, we're moving along pretty well.

Raddatz: If it turned into a civil war, and I know you hate these hypotheticals, but this is also a debate back home. If it turns into a civil war, should the American troops leave?